Celebrating World Cocktail Day!
John Dunlop
World Cocktail Day is a global celebration of cocktails, and the common myth is that they originated in New Orleans in the 1830’s. The story goes that Antoine Peychaud ran an apothecary shop in the French Quarter and sold his own homemade bitters. After a time, he recognized that his bitters tasted especially good mixed with cognac, sugar and water. And, since he measured out this concoction with an egg cup, or "coquetier" in French, the “cocktail” was born.
However, World Cocktail Day marks the date, May 13, 1806, that the first definition of a cocktail was published in the New York tabloid The Balance and Columbian Repository. A cocktail was defined as "a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters".
Whether you believe cocktails originated sometime around 1806, or in the 1830s in New Orleans, I’m just thankful someone created them! Cheers!
