A cocktail is a mixed drink, usually alcoholic. Most commonly, a cocktail is a combination of one or more spirits mixed with other ingredients, such as juices, flavored syrups, tonic water, shrubs, and bitters. Cocktails vary widely across regions of the world, and many websites publish both original recipes and their own interpretations of older and more famous cocktails.
The old fashioned is a cocktail made by muddling sugar with bitters and water, adding whiskey or sometimes brandy, and garnishing with an orange slice or zest and a cocktail cherry. It is traditionally served with ice in an old fashioned glass.
The sidecar is a cocktail traditionally made with brandy, orange liqueur, and lemon juice. It became popular in Paris and London in the early 1920s. Common modifications of the original recipe are a sugar rim, added sugar syrup, and an orange twist or lemon twist.
The martini is a cocktail made with gin and vermouth, and garnished with an olive and/or a lemon twist. Over the years, the martini has become one of the best-known mixed alcoholic beverages. A common variation, the vodka martini, uses vodka instead of gin for the cocktail's base spirit.
A cosmopolitan, or, informally, a cosmo, is a cocktail made with vodka, Cointreau, cranberry juice, and freshly squeezed or sweetened lime juice.
A bartender is a person who formulates and serves alcoholic or soft drink beverages behind the bar, usually in a licensed establishment as well as in restaurants and nightclubs, but also occasionally at private parties. Bartenders also usually maintain the supplies and inventory for the bar. As well as serving beer and wine, a bartender can generally also mix classic cocktails such as a Cosmopolitan, Manhattan, Old Fashioned, and Mojito.
The negroni is a cocktail, made of equal parts gin, vermouth rosso, and Campari, generally served on the rocks, and commonly garnished with an orange slice or orange peel. It is considered an apéritif.
A cocktail glass is a stemmed glass with an inverted cone bowl, mainly used to serve straight-up cocktails. The term cocktail glass is often used interchangeably with martini glass, despite their differing slightly. Today, the glass is used to serve a variety of cocktails, such as the martini and its variations, Manhattan, Brandy Alexander, pisco sour, Negroni, cosmopolitan, gimlet, and the grasshopper.
A sour is a traditional family of mixed drinks. Sours belong to one of the old families of original cocktails and are described by Jerry Thomas in his 1862 book How to Mix Drinks.
The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks is a book about cocktails by David A. Embury, first published in 1948. The book is noteworthy for its witty, highly opinionated and conversational tone, as well as its categorization of cocktails into two main types: aromatic and sour; its categorization of ingredients into three categories: the base, modifying agents, and special flavorings and coloring agents; and its 1:2:8 ratio for sour type cocktails.
A bijou is a mixed alcoholic drink composed of gin, vermouth, and chartreuse. This cocktail was invented by Harry Johnson, "the father of professional bartending", who called it bijou because it combined the colors of three jewels: gin for diamond, vermouth for ruby, and chartreuse for emerald. An original-style bijou is made stirred with ice as Johnson's 1900 New and Improved Bartender Manual states "mix well with a spoon and serve." This recipe is also one of the oldest in the manual, dating back to the 1890s.
Dale DeGroff, also known as "the King of Cocktails" or "King Cocktail", is an American bartender and author. The New York Times in 2015 called DeGroff "one of the world's foremost cocktail experts", and wrote that his book The Craft of the Cocktail is considered an essential bartending reference. From 1987 to 1999 DeGroff rose to prominence as the original chief bartender in the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center in New York City, where his then-unusual emphasis on classic cocktail recipes and high-quality ingredients led to substantial acclaim and emulation by many other bars in New York City and beyond, and helped influence the creation of the craft cocktail movement.
A Signature drink is any unique or original drink that expresses the nature of the person or establishment creating it.
A lemon drop is a vodka-based cocktail that has a lemony, sweet and sour flavor, prepared using vodka, triple sec, and fresh lemon juice. It has been described as a variant of, or as "a take on", the vodka martini, but is in fact closer to a white lady variant. It is typically prepared and served straight up – chilled with ice and strained.
Sasha Nathan Petraske was the founder of the New York City cocktail bar Milk & Honey, as well as a partner and creative force behind many of the world's most highly regarded bars. During his lifetime he was credited with inventing modern cocktail culture.
Gary "Gaz" Regan was a British-born bartender and a writer in the United States. He was known for his book The Joy of Mixology.
Audrey Saunders is an American bartender, considered one of the world's most famous bartenders. She is most well known as the operating partner and creative lead of Pegu Club, a bar in New York City from 2005 to 2020. The bar was one of the most influential in the United States. Since its closure, Saunders and her husband have been developing a retreat for beverage industry members in rural Washington state.
Angel's Share was a speakeasy-style bar in the East Village of Manhattan, New York City. The Japanese-style bar was one of the pioneering establishments in the cocktail renaissance.
Pegu Club was a craft cocktail bar in New York City, operating from 2005 to 2020. It was located on the border of SoHo and Greenwich Village in Manhattan. The bar was named after and loosely inspired by the Pegu Club, a club in a British colonial outpost in Myanmar, as well as its signature cocktail with the same name.
