Etymology of Cocktail

Piña Colada cocktails with pieces of coconut.

There are several claims about the origin of the term "cocktail," many of which are fanciful and few of which are supported by documentary evidence. Among them are:

• Barrel taps are known as cocks and the term tails usually referred to the dregs of distillate left at the end of a run in a distillery or at the bottom of a cask. Colonial taverns kept their spirits (rum, brandy, whiskey, gin, applejack) in casks, and as the liquid in the casks lowered the tavern keeper would combine the tails into an additional cask kept for that purpose, to be sold at a reduced price. The patrons would request the "cock tailings" or the tailings from the stop cock of the cask.
• Fighting cocks were given a mixture of spirits by their trainers before a fight. This mixture was known as a cocks-ale.
• In Campeche, Mexico, local bartenders used wooden spoons carved from a native root known as cola de-gallo (cock's tail) to stir the local spirits and punches before serving.
• In tribal Ireland, clan chiefs would gather to consult on matters such as border disputes, and to discuss cooperative plans when the island's residents were faced with a common foe. These meetings would typically take place in the great hall of the hosting clan. The clan chiefs would seat themselves at a communal table and their mugs of mead would be adorned with a cock's tail to signify their status.
• A tavern near Elmsford, New York was popular with the officers of the Revolutionary soldiers of Washington and Lafayette. The American troops preferred whiskey or gin, the French preferred wine or vermouth. All enjoyed a bit of brandy or rum. Sometimes late in the evenings, in a spirit of camaraderie, the spirits were mixed from one cup to another during toasts. A soldier stole a rooster from the tavern owner's neighbor, who was believed to be a Tory supporter of George III of the United Kingdom. The rooster was promptly cooked and served to the customers, with the tail feathers used to adorn the accompanying drinks. The toasts accompanying this meal were "vive le cocktail" and the mixed drinks were so called ever after.^[8]
• Cocktails were originally a morning beverage, and the cocktail was the name given as metaphor for the rooster (cocktail) heralding morning light of day. This was first posited in 2004 by Ted Haigh in "Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails". And can be distinguished from the theory "take two snips of the hair of the dog that bit you", which refers to consuming a small bit of alcohol the morning after a "binge drinking night" to curb the effects of the symptoms of the hangover, in the belief that these symptoms are the result of a form of withdrawal.
• A cock's tail has feathers in many varied colours as a cocktail has varied alcoholic drinks mixed together.
• Some say that it was customary to put a feather, presumably from a cock's tail, in the drink to serve both as decoration and to signal to teetotalers that the drink contained alcohol.
• Another etymology is that the term is derived from coquetier, a French double-ended egg-cup which was used to serve the beverage in New Orleans in the early 19th century.^[9]
• In the 1800s it was customary to dock the tails of good horses of mixed breeds. These horses were referred to as cock-tails. The beverage known as a "cock-tail", like the horse, was neither strictly spirit nor wine — it was a mixed breed, but a good horse nonetheless.
• After cokstele or cock-stick, a type of weighted stick used for throwing at cocks as a sport. See Cock throwing.
• The word could also be a distortion of Latin [aqua] decocta, meaning "distilled water".
• In the book, Under the Mountain, by Margaret Robson, published in 1958, the author states, "James Fenimore Cooper stayed (at Hustler's Tavern) in Lewiston, New York in 1821 while writing The Spy. In The Spy, Cooper wrote of cock-tails being served in Betsy Flanagan's tavern. Cooper researched the novel by using information taken from war veterans and used the owners, Thomas and Catherine Hustler, as the models for Sergeant Hollister and Betty Flanigan. According to Cooper, it was Catherine Hustler who invented the gin cocktail, stirring it with a feather from a stuffed rooster's tail." Catherine Hustler described her drink by saying, "it warms both the soul and body and is fit to be put in a vessel of diamonds." Hustler's Tavern, which stood at the northeast corner of 8th and Center Streets in Lewiston, NY, is no longer standing.