Image of a martini cocktail with olive
15 July 2020
A cocktail is, of course, a mixed drink. Looking at the word’s roots, cock + tail, how the word developed this meaning would seem to be a complete mystery, but a bit of research reveals that the history of the word is one of horses, mixed parentage, electoral politics, and, of course, booze.
Cocktail is also a superb example of how the brevity of the citations in the Oxford English Dictionary, while perfectly adequate for illustrating how a word has been used over the centuries, often cannot express the most interesting aspects of the word, how it fits into the historical and cultural trends of the period and the artistry of some of writers who employ it. In this case, the OED’s entry has been updated quite recently, September 2019, and it is superbly researched. I can find no antedatings or factual information to add to it. But reading the citations in their full context is informative and fun. (At least I had a great time researching this one.)
Cocktail makes its appearance in the mid eighteenth century with the sense of a horse with a bobbed tail, so that it stands upright, or cocked. Generally considered unnecessary and cruel today, the bobbing or docking of a horse’s tail was done to prevent the tail from becoming entangled in its harness. Here is the first citation in the OED, from an advertisement in the London Evening-Post of 17 February 1750:
A black Cock Tail Gelding, about fifteen Hands high.
This is a perfectly fine citation. It shows exactly how the term was being used in that year. But such a brief clipping cannot convey the full context. One might, as I did, assume that it was an advertisement for the sale of a horse, but by actually reading the newspaper in question you discover that is not the case. The classified ads in the paper of that day unfold the story of a mini crime spree committed by a grifter on the merchants of Winchester, England. Here are two classified ads from that paper. The first contains the OED’s citation, but the story continues in the second:
WHEREAS G—— D——n, a small Size Man, about five feet high, a brown Coat, a Plad [sic] Waistcoat edg’d with Silver Twist, a cut Bob Wig, who called himself a Riding-Groom, did on or about the 12th Day of January last hire of Edward Eccott, Blacksmith, of Winchester in the County of Southampton, a black Cock Tail Gelding, about fifteen Hands high, goes straddling behind, with a Swelling between the Hair and Hoof of the Off Leg behind: The said Dunn hired the said Gelding to go to Lady Middleton’s, five Miles beyond Farnham from Winchester aforesaid, and has not been heard of since; These are therefore to give Notice, that whoever will apprehend the said G—— D——n, or secure the said Gelding, shall receive one Guinea Reward of me.
Edward Eccott
The said G—— D——n left at the same Time, at Christopher Todd’s, at the Castle Inn, in Winchester aforesaid, a Bay-Gelding, about fourteen Hands high, a Hog Mans, cut Tail, Blaze down his Face, and a gall’d Back; These are to give the said G—— D——n Notice, that unless he comes and pays the Charges for keeping the said Gelding, it will be appraised and sold as the Law directs.
Christopher Todd
By the end of the eighteenth century cocktail was being used to refer to non-thoroughbred horses, as thoroughbreds would be too valuable to put into harness to drag a cart about. From a 1796 treatise on horses by John Lawrence:
In the reign of Elizabeth, the generality of English Horses were either weak, or consisted of sturdy jades, better adapted to draft than to any other purpose; but, with some exceptions, exhibited strong proofs of initient improvement, one of which is, an instance of a Horse travelling fourscore miles within the day for a wager; a feat which would puzzle a great number of those fine cock-tail nags, sold by dealers of the present day, at three or fourscore pounds each.
And there is this letter from poet George Ellis to Walter Scott on his new book on Dryden, dated 23 September 1808, which uses the cocktail-as-non-thoroughbred as a metaphor for writers:
Your Dryden was to me a perfectly new book. It is certainly painful to see a race-horse in a hackney-chaise, but when one considers that he will suffer infinitely less from the violent exertion to which he is condemned, than a creature of inferior race—and that the wretched cock-tail on whom the same task is usually imposed, must shortly become a martyr to the service, one’s conscience becomes more at ease, and we are able to enjoy Dr. Johnson’s favorite pleasure of rapid motion without much remorse on the score of its cruelty.
It wasn’t long before cocktail took on the sense of improper decorum or a lack of breeding. Here is writer Robert Smith Surtees using it in the New Sporting Magazine of March 1835. The general context is still indirectly related to horses, in this case foxhunting, but it doesn’t refer to the horse itself. Note that the character of Jorrocks was one that Surtees used regularly, a sport-loving, cockney grocer, a vulgar but amiable fellow:
Stranger. What! you hunt do you?
Jorrocks. A few—you’ve perhaps heard tell of the Surrey unt?
Stranger. Cock-tail affair isn’t it?
Jorrocks. No such thing I assure you—Cock-tail indeed! I likes that.
And there is this from the London Morning Post of 9 April 1849, about a certain Mr. Lloyd who had been misrepresenting himself in Paris as a representative of the British government:
Who is he, what is he, whence comes he; where are his credentials? In truth, it is high time that this extremely cock-tail affair should be exploded: it is a blackguard business, and although it were lost time and trouble to break such a fly as Mr. Lloyd upon the wheel, yet he really should be made to desist from assuming a status for himself and his followers to which none of them are entitled.
So by the mid nineteenth century, cocktail had gone from referring to a horse’s docked tail that that of a mixture or dilution.
The connection to alcohol occurs at the turn of the nineteenth century in America, specifically in reference to a mixture or potion of spirits. The first known use is from the Amherst, New Hampshire publication The Farmer’s Cabinet of 28 April 1803:
Drank a glass of cocktail—excellent for the head. [...] Call'd at the Doct's. [...] Drank another glass of cocktail.
The OED records another citation from three years later that describes what a cocktail is in detail. From the Hudson, New York newspaper The Balance of 13 May 1806:
Cock tail, then, is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters.
Again, this brief citation, while conveying all the necessary information, fails to convey the larger context, that of politicians getting the electorate drunk in order to convince them to vote for them. It’s also an example of what appears to be a “letter from the editor,” using a fictional man on the street to convey a political opinion held by the publisher. More fully, it reads:
Sir,
I observe in your paper of the 6th instant, in the account of a democratic candidate for a seat in the legislature, marked under the head of LOSS, 25 do. cocktail. Will you be obliging as to inform me what is meant by this species of refreshment? Though a stranger to you, I believe, from your general character, you will not suppose this request to be impertinent.
I have heard of a jorum, of phlegm-cutter and fog driver, of wetting the whistle, and moistening the clay, of a fillip, a spur in the head, quenching a spark in the throat, of flip, &c. but never in my life, though I have lived a good many years, did I hear of cock-tail before. Is it peculiar to a part of this country? Or is it a late invention? Is the name expressive of the effect which the drink has on a particular part of the body? Or does it signify that democrats who take the potion are turned topsyturvy, and have their heads where their tails should be? I should think the latter to be the real solution; but I am unwilling to determine finally until I receive all the information in my power [....]
Yours,
A SUBSCRIBER
As I make it a point, never to publish any thing (under my editorial head) but what I can explain, I shall not hesitate to gratify the curiosity of my inquisitive correspondent :—Cock tail, then, is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters—it is vulgarly called bittered sling, and supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion, inasmuch as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head. It is said also, to be of great use to a democratic candidate: because, a person having swallowed a glass of it, is ready to swallow any thing else.
Edit. Bal.
(Note: do not read any intent of present-day, political commentary in my including this fuller citation. The Democratic party described here is that of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, not that of Joe Biden and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez)
Originally, the alcoholic sense of cocktail referred specifically to a sling, that is a mixture of gin or other spirit, sugar, and grated nutmeg. By about 1850 it started to refer to any mixed drink, and all specificity to a sling was gone by 1900. Also, by the turn of the twentieth century it was being used for mixtures of food like a fruit cocktail.
Sources:
The Balance, and Columbian Repository, vol. 5. Hudson, New York: Harry Croswell, 1806, 146.
“Express from Paris.” The Morning Post (London), 9 April 1849, 7.
Lawrence, John. A Philosophical and Practical Treatise on Horses, and On the Moral Duties of Man Towards the Brute Creation, vol 1 of 2. London: T.N. Longman, 1796, 89. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).
Lockhart, J.G. Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, vol. 2 of 7. Boston: Otis, Broaders and Co., 1837, 144–45. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
“Classified Ads.” London Evening-Post. 17 February 1750, 2. Gale News Vault.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, September 2019, s.v. cocktail, adj. and n.
Surtees, Robert Smith [not credited]. “Jorrocks at Cheltenham.” New Sporting Magazine, 8.47, March 1835, 320.
Photo credit: Copyright, Ralf Roletschek, 2015, used with permission.