ColaCaoTeam

The most popular alcoholic beverage in the world today is that high-powered mixture known as the cocktail.

For a century and beyond this stimulating drink has served to elevate dejected spirits. Born, nurtured, and christened on this side of the Atlantic, it has overflowed its original boundaries, especially since the World War, and today even staid British taste, long wedded to historic brandy and soda, is beginning to find satisfaction – and something else – in the Yankee mixed drink.

Why is a cocktail called a cocktail? Why should the rear adornment of a chanticleer be identified with so robust a libation?

The origin of the cocktail and its singular naming have long been veiled in mystery. One legend sets forth that the French-speaking people of Old New Orleans had a word for a favorite drink, and that word eventually was corrupted into “cocktail.” Other and more fanciful legends have found circulation from time to time but here are the facts concerning the birth of the cocktail and how it received its name.

In the year 1793, at the time of the uprising of the blacks on the portion of the island of San Domingo then belonging to France, wealthy white plantation owners were forced to flee that favored spot in the sun-lit Caribbean. With them went their precious belongings and heirlooms. Some of the expelled Dominguais who flocked to what was then Spanish Louisiana brought gold to New Orleans. Others brought slaves along with their household goods. Some brought nothing but the clothes they wore upon their backs. One refugee succeeded in salvaging, among other scanty possessions, a recipe for the compounding of a liquid tonic, called bitters, a recipe that had been a secret family formula for years.

This particular young Creole refugee was of a distinguished French family and had been educated as an apothecary. His name was Antoine Amedee Peychaud. In the turmoil of the insurrection and the hurried exodus from San Domingo, Amedee and his young sister, Lasthenie, became separated. It was not until years later when he had established himself in New Orleans, that the sister was located in Paris and Peychaud had her join him in his new home where subsequently she married into the well-known Maurin family.

A. A. Peychaud’s bid for fame and popularity in the city of his adoption was founded not so much upon the quality or profusion of the drugs he dispensed over the counter of his shop (located in a building still standing at 437 Royal street) as upon his bitters, a tonic and stomachic compounded according to his secret family formula. These bitters, good for what ailed one irrespective of malady, gave an added zest to the potions of cognac brandy he served friends and others who came into his pharmacy – especially those in need of a little brandy, as well as bitters, for their stomach’s sake.

The fame of Peychaud’s highly flavored dram of brandy spread rapidly. Consequently the bitters found a ready market in the numerous coffee houses (as liquid dispensing establishments were then called) that stood cheek by jowl in almost every street in old New Orleans. Cognac had long been a popular drink among the city’s experienced bibbers, but presently customers began demanding their French brandy spiked with a dash or so of the marvelous bitters compounded by M. Peychaud.

So, while we have New Orleans to thank for the cocktail, we Peychaud for coming up with bitters, which is a delightful addition to many cocktails.

Never Be Lost For What Beverage To Give Your Friends At A Party With Our Online Bartending School Lessons

Click here for FREE online ebook!

http://www.onlinebartendingschool.org/

Absinthe is a drink that has caused much controversy of the years for being a “wild” and “sinful” drink. These stereotypes fit in well with those that have followed New Orleans, which is where this potent drink first hit American soil.

According to some authorities, absinthe as a drink originated in Algeria, and French soldiers serving in the Franco-Algerian war (1830-47) introduced the green spirits to Paris upon their return from the North African country where the drink found strong favor along the boulevards. In time the spectacle of bearded men and demi-mondes dripping their absinthes became one of the sights of Paris. Naturally, so fashionable a Parisian drink was not long in finding its way to the Little Paris of North America – New Orleans.

The drink, which was spelled absinthe in New Orleans liquor advertisements in 1837, when it was apparently first imported from France and Switzerland, was liquor distilled from a large number of various herbs, roots, seeds, leaves, and barks steeped in anise. It also included Artemisia absinthium, an herb known as “Wormwood” abroad, but called Herbe Sainte by the French-speaking population of Louisiana. In recent years wormwood has been condemned as harmful and habit-forming, and laws have been enacted forbidding its use in liquors in the United States and other countries. In addition to banning wormwood from manufactured liquor, the use of the word “absinthe” on bottles of modern concoctions, which do not contain wormwood, is also banned.

Of all the ancient buildings in New Orleans’ famed Vieux Carre, none has been more glorified in story and picture than a square, plastered-brick building at the corner of Bourbon and Bienville streets, known as “The Old Absinthe House.”

Hoary legend has long set forth that the building was erected in 1752, 1774, 1786, 1792, but as a matter of fact it was actually built in 1806 for the importing and commission firm of Juncadella & Font, Catalonians from Barcelona, Spain. In 1820, after Francisco Juncadella died and Pedro Font returned to his native land, the place continued as a commission house for the barter of foodstuffs, tobacco, shoes, clothing, as well as liquids in bulk from Spain, and was conducted by relatives of the builders. Later it became an epicure, or grocery shop; for several years it was a cordonnerie, or boot and shoe store, and not until 1846 did the ground floor corner room become a coffeehouse, as saloons were then called.

This initial liquid refreshment establishment was run by Jacinto Aleix, a nephew of Senora Juncadella, and was known as “Aleix’s Coffee-House.” In 1869,Cayetano Ferrer, a Catalan from Barcelona, who had been a bar-keeper at the French Opera House, transferred his talents to the old Juncadella casa and became principal drink-mixer for the Aleix brothers. In 1874, Cayetano himself leased the place, calling it the “Absinthe Room” because of the potent dripped absinthe he served in the Parisian manner. His drink became so popular that it won fame not only for Cayetano, but for the balance of his family – papa, mamma, Uncle Leon, and three sons, Felix, Paul, and Jacinto, who helped to attend the wants of all and sundry who crowded the place. What the customers came for chiefly was the emerald liquor into which, tiny drop by tiny drop, fell water from the brass faucets of the pair of fountains that decorated the long cypress bar.

Though absinthe was the liquor of that time period, it’s very hard to come by in modern times, but people are still fascinated with this powerful substance.

Never Be Lost For What Beverage To Give Your Friends At A Party With Our Online Bartending School Lessons

Click here for FREE online ebook!

http://www.onlinebartendingschool.org/