Cocktail History and Recipes

Welcome to our website! On this page, you'll find a short history of cocktails as well as finding links to the recipes for some really popular and tasty cocktails that you can use with your plastic cocktail glasses. So take some time to explore!

The History of Cocktails

Since the invention of alcohol, people have been mixing various ingredients with beers, wines and spirits. However, the whole idea about cocktails and mixed drinks as we know it today has only appeared in the Western world since the early nineteenth century. But, it's not to say that mixed drinks hadn't been made before that, as a Mint Julip was popular with early American colonists.

The word "Cocktail" was originally used to describe a mixed-breed horse with a docked tail, but it was not used to descibe a mixed drink until the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was a New York newspaper called the Balance and Columbian Repository that first described a cocktail as "a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters".

Today, there are many drinks known as cocktails that would fall far from the above definition. Today, there are Fixes, Fizzes, Slings, Sours, and many other types of mixed drinks. There are hundreds of basic standard recipes and thousands of variations, with more invented every year. Below, we've divided the cocktail recipes into various categories depending on the base. For example, some people have a preference for scotch, so the cocktails with scotch are listed below. Find your favourite spirit below and click the link to the various cocktail recipes! Check back regularly, as more recipes will be added as time goes by.

Base Spirit:

Scotch (inc. Rye)   Bourbon  Vodka   Gin  Rum  Tequila  Schnapps (various flavours)