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.
Gin is a distilled alcoholic drink flavoured with juniper berries and other botanical ingredients.
A bitters is traditionally an alcoholic preparation flavored with botanical matter for a bitter or bittersweet flavor. Originally, numerous longstanding brands of bitters were developed as patent medicines, but now are sold as digestifs, sometimes with herbal properties, and as cocktail flavorings.
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.
Pink gin was historically used to refer to a cocktail made fashionable in England in the mid-19th century, consisting of Plymouth gin and a dash of Angostura bitters, a dark red bitters that makes the whole drink pinkish. In recent years, the term Pink gin has also been used to define a specific category of gin where a range of fruits and flavourings are infused into the gin to give it a pink color.
A cosmopolitan, or, informally, a cosmo, is a cocktail made with vodka, Cointreau, cranberry juice, and freshly squeezed or sweetened lime juice.
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.
Gordon's is a brand of London dry gin first produced in 1769. The top markets for Gordon's are the United Kingdom, the United States and Greece. It is owned by the British spirits company Diageo. It is the world's best-selling London dry gin. Gordon's has been the UK's number one gin since the late 19th century. A 40% ABV version for the North American market is distilled in Canada.
Angostura bitters is a concentrated bitters based on gentian, herbs, and spices, produced by House of Angostura in Trinidad and Tobago. It is typically used for flavouring beverages, or less often, food. The bitters were first produced in the town of Angostura, hence the name, but do not contain angostura bark. The bottle is recognisable by its distinctive oversized label and yellow cap. Angostura is Spanish for "narrowing", the town of Angostura having been at the first narrowing of the Orinoco River.
The gimlet is a cocktail made of gin and lime cordial. A 1928 description of the drink was: gin, and a spot of lime. A description in the 1953 Raymond Chandler novel The Long Goodbye stated that "a real gimlet is half gin and half Rose's lime juice and nothing else." This is in line with the proportions suggested by The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930), which specifies one half gin and one half lime juice. However, some modern tastes are less sweet, and generally provide for up to four parts gin to one part lime cordial.
An Alabama slammer is a cocktail made with amaretto, Southern Comfort, sloe gin, and orange juice. It is served in a Collins glass. It is also sometimes known as a southern slammer. It is claimed to have been made famous by quarterback Brett Favre; however, this drink was popular with college crowds as early as the 1980s, when it was served as a shaker shot in many bars and was also available by the pitcher in T.G.I. Friday's and other chain restaurants.
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 "fizz" is a mixed drink variation on the older sours family of cocktail. Its defining features are an acidic juice and carbonated water. It typically includes gin or rum as its alcoholic ingredient.
A highball is a mixed alcoholic drink composed of an alcoholic base spirit and a larger proportion of a non-alcoholic mixer, often a carbonated beverage. Examples include the Seven and Seven, Scotch and soda, gin and tonic, screwdriver, fernet con coca, Tom Collins, and rum and Coke. A highball is typically served over ice in a large straight-sided highball glass or Collins glass.
A Bloody Mary is a cocktail containing vodka, tomato juice, and other spices and flavorings including Worcestershire sauce, hot sauces, garlic, herbs, horseradish, celery, olives, pickled vegetables, salt, black pepper, lemon juice, lime juice and celery salt. Some versions of the drink, such as the "surf 'n turf" Bloody Mary, include shrimp and bacon as garnishes. In the United States, it is usually consumed in the morning or early afternoon, and is popular as a hangover cure.
The Blackthorn is an Irish whiskey or sloe gin based cocktail. Both versions emerged in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Chapman is a non-alcoholic drink, usually red in colour. Often referred to as a non-alcoholic punch, it is traditionally made with a mix of Fanta, Sprite, Cucumber, Lemon, Grenadine and Angostura bitters and is traditionally served in a large mug with ice and a few slices of cucumber. It is often described as Nigeria's favourite drink and though predominantly served without alcohol, it can also be served with a hint of vodka or rum.
The Martinez is a classic cocktail that is widely regarded as the direct precursor to the Martini. It serves as the basis for many modern cocktails, and several different versions of the original exist. These are generally distinguished by the accompaniment of either Maraschino or Curacao, as well as differences in gin or bitters.
