Stirred, shaken, neat, on the rocks, straight up, with a kick, or dirty. However you order them, everyone (save for maybe some Mormons and recovering alcoholics) loves a good cocktail. They have inspired world leaders, famous artists and poets, the title for a cheesy 1988 Tom Cruise film, socialite parties, a genre of above-the-knee dresses, business executives and bar tenders’ creativity. The cocktail has infused itself into our popular, historical and literary culture, often becoming as iconic as the famous men and women who drank them.
Can you imagine Churchill without a Martini in hand or a book by Hemmingway that didn’t describe copious cocktail variations? But, have you ever wondered where and when your favorite 5 o’clock drink came from? Was a Manhattan truly invented in Manhattan? Where do Mojitos really come from? Who was Tom Collins anyway? From the classic Martini to the lesser known Singapore Sling, here is a list of 8 classic cocktails and the often-controversial stories behind them.
1.The Mojito
The drink of sailors? Traditionally made using white rum, sugar or sugar cane juice, lime, carbonated water and mint muddled together, many believe the Mojito is quite possibly world’s first cocktail. Although the image of hardened sailors drinking rum mixed with mint, lime and sugar may not match your vision of straight-from-the-bottle gulping pirates, the Mojito has been enjoyed as early as the 16th century.
2.Singapore Sling
A classic cocktail often appearing in various forms on drink menus around the world, the Singapore Sling was appropriately first concocted in Singapore. While the exact year this cocktail was created is open to some debate, most agree that the cocktail was first created by a Hainanese-Chinese bartender named Mr. Ngiam Tong Boon at the Raffles Hotel’s Long Bar in Singapore. It is believed the bartender first mixed up the cocktail sometime between 1910 and 1915.
3. The Sidecar
A classic cocktail dating back about 100 years, the Sidecar mixes equal parts brandy or Cognac, Cointreau and lemon juice. The origin of the Sidecar is largely debated, but popular wisdom is that the drink was probably first created in Paris sometime during or just following WWI. In the 1948 book by David A. Embury, The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, the author credits the invention of the drink to an American Army captain in Paris during WWI.
4.The Pisco Sour
Another cocktail on the list with a controversial history is the Pisco Sour. A drink made from Pisco (a regional brandy from South America), lemon juice, bitters and egg whites, many debate whether the national origin of this drink is Peruvian or Chilean.
Pisco itself dates back to the 16th century. The liqueur distilled from grapes by Spanish colonialists in South America in an attempt to make an inexpensive version of Spanish brandy. In Peru, the creation of the Pisco Sour is attributed to American expatriate Victor “Gringo” Morris at the Morris Bar in Lima, who blended up the drink as a variation of a whiskey sour. The drink immediately became so popular that other major hotels began serving it in their bars also, quickly popularizing the cocktail with an international crowd.
5. White Russian
Not named for the country of its origin, but rather for the vodka used in the recipe, White Russians have recently made a booming resurgence in part due to the cult movie classic The Big Lebowiski. The movie’s main character, The Dude, drinks a steady stream of White Russians throughout the film. The use of the word Russian in the name of this drink was mostly due to the fact that when it was first invented sometime in the 1930s, prior to the huge vodka marketing campaign of the 1950s, when vodka was a little known liquor in the United States usually directly associated with its nation of origin, Russia.
6.Manhattan
Often called the “King of Cocktails” or the “Drinking Man’s Cocktail,” The Manhattan is a very potent drink and one of the legendary six classic cocktails included in David Embury’s famous book, The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks. The Manhattan is a cocktail made with a mixture of whiskey, sweet vermouth and bitters and garnished most often with a maraschino cherry.
7.The Martini
And, last, but certainly not least, on this list of cocktails is the Martini. The most well-known of cocktails, Western culture has created quite the lore and mythology surrounding the drink. The three-martini lunch became a popular phrase coined for expensive, long lunches taken by business executives. In fact, the Martini has become more of a class of drinks than one drink in particular – with variations like Appletinis, Vodka martinis and others becoming popular over the years.
8.Tom Collins
There are a few different legends surrounding the name of the famous and classic Tom Collins cocktail. While many assume the drink was named after a real person, there is much debate whether there ever really was a Tom Collins and whether he lent to his name to this cocktail of gin, lemon and lime juice and soda water. One popular account says the cocktail was named after not a Tom, but a John Collins who was a headwaiter at a London Hotel in the early 19th century. The cocktail’s name was changed to a Tom Collins when Old Tom brand gin (a sweetened gin rarely used today) was substituted for the drier gin in the original recipe.