The holidays will be here before you know it. If you’re planning on doing some entertaining in the months ahead, the time to set up that at-home bar with cocktail essentials and tools is now. Start perfecting your mixology skills and be prepared to artfully quench the thirst of all your guests.
The History of the Basic Cocktail
There’s so much more to a cocktail than dumping vodka into a glass of orange juice. In 1806, a cocktail was defined by The Balance and Columbian Repository of New York as “a stimulating liquor composed of any kind of sugar, water, and bitters…”1 In 1862, a bartender by the name of Jerry Thomas published The Bartender’s Guide (How to Mix Drinks) which became the widely accepted encyclopedia for bartenders and wanna-be mixologists worldwide.
The availability of ice and the ability to successfully transport it before it melted propelled cocktail culture forward, as did the repeal of Prohibition. By the mid-