Cocktail Of The Month

You have had a hard day at the office. Because of the pandemic, your salary has been cut by 30% and today before you go home, you find out you have been furloughed. You cannot use your vacation or sick days. WTF! On your way you are thinking about that cocktail to decompress.  Thank god you buy a three-week supply of alcohol, every week. My cocktail of choice is a Martini when it is not a Sazerac or not an Old Fashion. I guess more to the point I enjoy cocktails. However, as with everything in life there is a story. Just like I enjoy learning about my human friends, I began to wonder about my cocktail friends, so I began to explore.

Here in New Orleans, we have festivals and more festivals. Every summer one is hosted by the Tales of the Cocktail usually it the hot and muggy month of July.

When I first began to read about cocktails, I read about an apothecary by the name of Peychaud and a drink of mixed brandy was the first cocktail. Some say this was the Sazerac. Well, how do you get cocktail from Sazerac? Peychaud served the drink in a French egg cup. The drink was call “coquetier” which is the French term for egg cup. Like many French words in Louisiana the pronunciation and length change. Coquetier became “cocktay” and finally cocktail. Plausible right? I thought so. But there was still doubt so I began to investigate.

My investigation led me to an article appearing in the January 14, 2016 edition of Saveur by spirits historian David Wondrich,  (https://www.saveur.com/how-the-cocktail-got-its-name/) titled “Ancient Mystery Revealed! The Real History (Maybe) of how the Cocktail got its Name”.

It is in Francis Grose’s 1785 “A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue” where Mr. Wondrich finds the answer. The definition for the verb “to feague” (“to fig”} which defines it to “put ginger up a horse’s fundament, to make him lively and carry his tale well”.  This was a practice done by horse dealers prior to the sale. A ginger suppositoried horse with a “cocked up” tail made the horse look spirited.  In addition, Grose adds “used figuratively for encouraging or spiriting on up”. Damn it is amazing what you can find on the internet. Is that better than mixed Brandy in an eggcup? How is that for a trivia question?

Growing up in New Orleans, you did not have to go to Liquor stores, everything was available behind the counter at Time Saver or any other convenient store. When money was low, you could get a 5^th. of K&B Vodka (a local drug store brand) with two bottles of Gatorade for $2.65 and you were good for the whole weekend.

It was until I graduated from college and started working in the medical device industry did my palate mature. Hell, the doctors I was calling on used K&B for their patients and not for their Vodka.

While my palet has matured, like most of you I cannot tell if my gin has a distinct flavor of Juniper Berries and Lavender. Can you? Let us call Diamond a Diamond we drink because we like the taste and want a buzz. Its only when we try to add the desire to hydrate with the drinks is when we get in trouble.

I am going provide you the recipes of cocktails I like. But more than recipes with my handy dandy portable Breathalyzer you will have an idea of the octane in each. (This is a scientific experiment in my house and the results are nontransferable.)  

Long past being impressed by labels, our base brand will be Kirkland. That is right folks my favorite store is Costco’s. Every month we will give you a new cocktail recipe. After tasting them, we will also include the potency of the cocktail.

The only problem using Kirkland’s is Ruth’s Chris will not be able to duplicate it!