Introduction

Cocktails and mixed drinks have been a part of drinking culture for a long time. Not content merely to ferment beverages on their own, people have been blending various spirits with other ingredients, probably all the way back to the beginning of civilization. In earlier times, such mixes were often used as medicines, being combinations of alcohol with various herbs, spices, and so on. These were not necessarily meant to be enjoyed on an everyday basis, but had specific uses. Indeed, some early medical texts warn about taking these curatives if you don’t really need to!

But that probably didn’t stop anyone from trying out their own blends at home, assuming they could get their hands on the ingredients. The mixing of alcoholic drinks with other alcoholic drinks, or with nonalcoholic beverages, seems to have taken hold in Europe by the sixteenth century, but it could well have started much earlier. By the nineteenth century, the imbibing of mixed drinks was all the rage, at least in certain circles. Writers of all kinds loved penning odes to their favorite concoctions, or at least including them in their tales, so that their characters could enjoy them, too. And many of these works became classics of modern literature. In case you’re wondering, the word “cocktail” has several possible origins:

It might come from a mispronunciation of coquetier, the French word for eggcup. In New Orleans, an eighteenth-century apothecary named Antoine Amédée Peychaud, who invented his own bitters, was said to have served said bitters with brandy in an eggcup. Customers would drink his “cocktays” for their health.

Or, it might come from the practice of tavern owners mixing the leftovers and dregs (called the tailings) of their barrels into one (possibly unpleasant) drink. They would then sell these mixed drinks, maybe at a discount. The taps of the barrels were sometimes called “cocks.” Thus, you would be drinking the tailings from the barrel’s cock (no immature laughing, please!).

Also, it might come from the seventeenth-century term cocktail, which described an animal, such as a horse, that had a rooster-like tail. This was mainly true for horses with docked tails, ones used for pulling coaches and such. But racehorses didn’t normally have docked tails, so any horses that did have such tails would have stood out on a racetrack because they’d been changed or visibly altered. Given how much horse racing fans like to drink, the theory is that the term entered drinking nomenclature to describe a drink that had been altered, or spruced up. This one seems like a bit of a stretch, it must be said.

Any or none of these theories might be the word’s true origin, but regardless, it was already in use by the early nineteenth century and has remained so ever since.

This little book is a compendium of literary references to cocktails and other mixed drinks, beginning in Ancient Egypt and continuing into the twenty-first century. Then there is a shorter section of some of the favorite mixed drinks of well-known authors, things that they might have enjoyed sipping while creating their masterworks. While some of the earliest drinks mentioned are not “true” cocktails as we think of them today, they show that the concept of mixing various ingredients with alcohol goes back a very long way. There are recipes for each drink, so that you can try them out, if you wish.

But always remember: it’s a sad reality that many authors drank entirely too much alcohol, drastically dimming their brilliance and cutting their lives tragically short because of their dependence on liquid inspiration. It should go without saying that while these classic and not-so-familiar recipes might be enticing, please drink responsibly and in moderation.

In the vast expanse of the world’s literature, there is a wealth of literary references to drinks of all kinds, and this book supplies only a short introduction to them. Perhaps it will also inspire you to seek out some of these masterpieces, and maybe enjoy reading them with a good mixed drink.