The most popular alcoholic beverage in the world today is that high-powered mixture known as the Cocktail.

For a century and beyond this stimulating drink has served to elevate dejected spirits. Born, nurtured, and christened on this side of the Atlantic, it has overflowed its original boundaries, especially since the World War, and today even staid British taste, long wedded to historic brandy and soda, is begin­ning to find satisfaction—and something else—in the Yankee mixed drink.

Why is a cocktail called a cocktail? Why should the rear adornment of a chanticleer be identified with so robust a libation?

The origin of the cocktail and its singular naming have long been veiled in mystery. One legend sets forth that the French-speaking people of Old New Orleans had a word for a favorite drink, and that word eventually was corrupted into "cocktail." Other and more fanciful legends have found circulation from time to time but here are the facts concerning the birth of the cocktail and how it received its in­apposite name.

In the year 1793, at the time of the uprising of the blacks on the portion of the island of San Domingo then belonging to France, wealthy white plantation owners were forced to flee that favored spot in the sun-lit Caribbean. With them went their precious belongings and heirlooms. Some of the expelled Dominguais who flocked to what was then Spanish Louisiana brought gold to New Orleans. Others brought slaves along with their household goods. Some brought nothing but the clothes they wore upon their backs. One refugee succeeded in salvaging, among other scanty possessions, a recipe for the com­pounding of a liquid tonic, called bitters, a recipe thathad been a secret family formula for years.

This particular young Creole refugee was of a distinguished French family and had been educated as an apothecary. His name was Antoine Amedee Peychaud. In the turmoil of the insurrection and the hurried exodus from San Domingo, Amedee and his young sister, Lasthenie, became separated. It was not until years later when he had established himself in New Orleans, that the sister was located in Paris and Peychaud had her join him in his new home where subsequently she married into the well-known Maurin family.

A. A. Peychaud's bid for fame and popularity in the city of his adoption was founded not so muchupon the quality or profusion of the drugs he dis­pensed over the counter of his shop (located in a building still standing at 437 Royal street) as upon his bitters, a tonic and stomachic compounded accord­ing to his secret family formula. These bitters, good for what ailed one irrespective of malady, gave an added zest to the potions of cognac brandy he served friends and others who came into his pharmacy— especially those in need of a little brandy, as wellas bitters, for their stomach's sake.

The fame of Peychaud's highly flavored dram of brandy spread rapidly. Consequently the bitters found a ready market in the numerous coffee houses (as liquid dispensing establishments were then called) that stood cheek by jowl in almost every street in old New Orleans. Cognac had long been a popular drink among the city's experienced bibbers, but presently customers began demanding their French brandy spiked with a dash or so of the marvelous bitters com­pounded by M. Peychaud.

In his own place of business Peychaud had a unique way of serving his spiced drink of brandy. He poured portions into what we now call an "egg-cup"—the old-fashioned double-end egg-cup. This particular piece of crockery, known to the French-speaking population as a coquetier (pronounced kah-kuh-TYAY), was, in all probability, forerunner of the present jigger—the name given the double-end metal contraption holding a jigger (1^ ounces) in the big end, and a pony (1 ounce) in the little end, which we now use to measure portions for mixed drinks.

It is not surprising that those whose French pro­nunciation was imperfect were soon calling the spiced drink they quaffed from the big end of the crockery cup a "cock-tay." Possibly through sampling too many of M. Peychaud's spiced brandies, the thick­ened tongues of the imbibers slurred the word into "cocktail."

Presently all New Orleans was drinking brandy-cocktails, quite dissimilar indeed from the usual brandy-toddies heretofore served exclusively in most of the coffee houses of old New Orleans. The bitters made the difference.

In such fashion did Peychaud's original San Do­mingo bitters give an otherwise simple brandy-toddy new life and zest. In such fashion did the incon­spicuous little crockery coquetier or egg-cup become the christening font of the cocktail.

Many have been the yarns setting forth the correct etymology of the word "cocktail." Some of these legends are picturesque, some old, some modern, many fantastic, and most of them far-fetched and mean­ingless. The word was not accepted by lexicographers until about the beginning of the present century, each pundit advancing a different version as to its origin. Dr. Frank H. Vizetelly, noted editor of the Standard Dictionary and authority on words, writes me;

"The cocktail goes back at least to the beginning of the 19th century, and may date back to the Amer­ican Revolution. It is alleged by one writer to have been a concoction prepared by the widow of a Revolu­tionary soldier as far back as 1779. He offers no proof of the statement, but a publication, The Balance, for May 13, 1806, describes the cocktail of that period as 'a stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters. It is vulgarly bitter sling, and is supposed to be an excel­lent electioneering potion.'

"Washington Irving in Knickerbocker (1809), page 241, said of the cocktail: 'They (Dutch-Amer­icans) lay claim to be the first inventors of the re­condite beverages, cock-tail, stone-fence, and sherry-cobbler.' Hawthorne referred to cocktails in The Blithedale Romance (1852), as did Thackeray in his The Newcomes (1854), but neither of these authors shed any light upon the origin of the term.

"The New England Dictionary on Historical Prin­ciples says that the origin of the word cocktail is lost. In this connection one writer refers to the older term cocktail, meaning a horse whose tail, being docked, sticks up like the tail of a cock. He adds: 'Since drinkers of cocktails believe them to be exhilarating, the recently popular song "Horsy, keep your tail up," may perhaps hint at a possible connection between the two senses of "cocktail."'

"Bartlett in his Dictionary of Americanisms gives the following: 'Cocktail. A stimulating beverage, made of brandy, gin, or other liquor, mixed with bit­ters, sugar and a very little water. A friend thinks this term was suggested by the shape which the froth, as a glass of porter, assumes when it flows over the sides of a tumbler containing the liquid effervescing.' He quotes the following from the New York Tribune of May, 1862: 'A bowie-knife and a foaming cocktail.' In Yorkshire dialect, cocktail describes beer that is fresh and foaming.

"Brewer in A Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, following the definition of cocktail, adds the note: 'The origin of the term is unknown: the story given in the New York World (1891) to the effect that it is an Aztec word, and that "the liquor was discovered by a Toltec noble, who sent it by the hand of his daughter Xochitl," to the king who promptly named it "xoctl," whence "cocktail" is a good specimen of the manufacture of popular etymologies.'

"As you will see from the foregoing, altho many theories have been advanced as to the etymology of the term cocktail, these, like most etymologies of the kind, are mere flights of fancy, and while they make interesting reading, cannot be accepted as reliable."

After careful analysis of Doctor Vizetelly's data it appears to be certain that the odd mispronunciation of coquetier in New Orleans is the oldest and most positive basis for the word "cocktail."

Monsieur Peychaud, glass in hand we salute you? A votre santi!

An interesting tale. bearing upon the use of the word cocktail in Old New Orleans is to be found in a book written by a German traveler over a century ago. The author was Henry Didimus, and his book, New Orleans As I Saw It, tells of his adventures in the Crescent City in the winter of 1835-36 at which time he became acquainted with the then famed bran­dy-cocktail.

Herr Didimus writes of wandering about the old town and of meeting up with three worthies . . . "one played the fiddle, another beat the drum, and the third dealt out nectar in the form of brandy-cocktail." Didimus says he repeated the name, "brandy-cocktail" when such a drink was suggested, so as to gain the attention of the third worthy who thereupon said: "Ah, I see; not acquainted with the mixture," and led the way to a refreshment place. When all were seated about a table, the third worthy yelled: "Boy, bring up four glasses of brandy-cocktails!"

The black slave vanished and returned with four tumblers practically filled, each of Didimus' com­panions seized a glass, and eyes shining with antici­pation, glasses were touched, and the drinks were downed.

Herr Didimus, immensely pleased with what the draft did to his insides, demanded to be told in what way a brandy-cocktail differed from a brandy-toddy?

"The difference between a brandy-cocktail and a brandy-toddy is this," explained the loquacious wor­thy. "A brandy-toddy is made by adding together a little water, a little sugar, and a great deal of brandy —mix well and drink. A brandy-cocktail is com­posed of the same ingredients, with the addition of a shade of bitters—so that the bitters draw the line of demarkation. Boy!" he bellowed, "bring up four brandy-toddies—you shall taste the difference, sir!"

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