The good doctor sold his own blends of distilled roots, citrus peels, and bark as a tonic (and, erm, hangover cure) in his London apothecary shop. According to Wondrich, a doctor named Richard Stoughton gets credit for adding those aromatic, complex flavor boosters to sweetened booze. But that doesn’t sound much like a Long Island Iced Tea?Īt some point, folks replaced the plain old ginger or pepper component of drinkable “ cocktails” with bitters. The theory goes that they applied the term “cock-tail” to those invigorating drinks, after the practice of unpleasantly surprising horses with spicy suppositories. Ginger and pepper were also common ingredients that barkeeps used to liven up alcoholic drinks (and by extension, those who consumed them). ![]() Unscrupulous horse traders in the 18th century would put ginger and/or pepper up their butts to make them look a little more frisky. Wondrich distills the story like this: A perky, cocked (or raised-up) tail on a horse is a sign of vim and vigor. ![]() But is that the full story? The more likely (and pretty gross) version So people in days of yore may have given the name to alcoholic drinks that were similarly blended (rather than pure spirits). The sanitized versionįrom its tail-clipping origins, “cock-tailed” became a sort of insult for nonpedigree racehorses with mixed lineage - Hogwarts-level elitism, quite frankly. But it took alcohol expert David Wondrich to trot out the truth, after extensive research. ![]() There are plenty of other theories on the word - all pretty convincing. The term cock-tailed originally described a horse with a docked (or clipped-short) tail. The probable *actual* origin of the word cocktailĭespite the name, the real root of the word cocktail doesn’t have anything to do with chickens but does involve horses.
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