A-Z Guide To Cocktail Names & Origins (Part 1)

A French physician served a drink to his friends using a double-ended, gallic-style egg cup, coquetiers. His friends called them, you guessed it, Cocktails!

Yves and Claudine Camdeborde's Relais Saint-Germain includes three operations: an elegant hotel with 22 roomy rooms with mirrored walls and exposed wooden beams (the most luxurious is the Marguerite de Navarre, with its own private terrace), and a pair of Paris's most buzzed-about dining spots. There are two ways to dine at the enormously popular Le Comptoir: jostle for one of its 20 tightly-packed seats during the daytime (when it's first-come, first-serve and offerings include delicious bistro dishes like pâtés and terrines and lightly grilled tuna served with a bright anchovy sauce) or book some six months in advance for the evening prix-fixe menu which features plates like roasted Normandy scallops with algae butter. In 2009, the couple opened the adjacent L'Avant Comptoir, their standing room only "hors d'oeuvres bar."

High-profile organo-loca-sustainavore Dan Barber has found the perfect home at Blue Hill Stone Barns, a beautiful restaurant in a bucolic but hard-working setting on a year-round farm and educational center. Most of what you eat here will be grown, raised, and/or processed on the property, and Barber's modern American food is full of color and flavor.

Victorian homes and the fashion mecca of Newbury Street, Back Bay is a classic Boston neighborhood. It's also ground zero for some of the city's finest dining, including top restaurants like L'Espalier (pictured), Clio and Bistro du Midi.

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With so many types of deals available, subscribing to Living Social in order to find a great restaurant deal is like playing roulette. If you're looking for the culinary jackpot, it's simply not worth it to have your inbox inundated with spa and bowling coupons with the hope of occasionally happening upon a cheap and delicious meal. 

Guayaki Claims: "Helps stimulate focus and clarity, boosts physical energy, supports weight loss, aids elimination."

Health Experts Say: In 2009, an LA Times article purports the South American tea's antioxidants and "long list of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, including B vitamins and vitamin C; manganese, potassium and zinc; and the beneficial plant compounds quercetin, theobromine and theophylline." But the article as well as another Mayo Clinic write-up note that studies have found that yerba mate can increase cancer risk. Plus, the tea's high caffeine content has its own set of side effects.

Dummy 23.

If your canine is too busy on play dates, walks, and naps at home, let your little pet unwind with a copy of Citydog magazine and a nightly turndown service, complete with doggie biscuit. Washington's Willows Lodge offers a WVIP program (Willows Very Important Pet, duh), which is full of pet-friendly amenities like doggy room service menus (prepared by the Dining Dog Café), bottled water, and a welcome card from your hosts. The hotel charges $25 for your four-legged friend's stay.

Black Trumpet mushrooms are especially delicious and unique.  They have a fruity aroma and a smoky rich flavor.  They are exceptional when dried, ground and used as a coating on meat for searing or to flavor sauces. 

Our weekend ritual includes a stop at our local bakery for the bread for the week, find a ritual that supports a local food business and shop regularly.

A cocktail popularized at the University of Alabama made with sloe gin, amaretto, Southern Comfort, and orange juice.

Evocative of the gentle tropical tradewinds of the French Caribbean islands for which it is named, Alize de France is a totally unique product in a new category of its own creation.

A cocktail reputedly first concocted at Arnaud's restaurant in New Orleans immediately following the end of Prohibition.

A cocktail made with lime juice, sugar, grenadine, and Bacardi Light Rum. The name dates back to 1934 and was associated with the firm Bacardi Imports, Inc., of Miami, Florida. In 1936, a New York State Supreme Court ruled that to be authentic, a "Bacardi Cocktail" had to be made with Bacardi Rum, since the name Bacardi was a registered trademark.

A cocktail said to have been invented about 1910 by bartender Charlie Mahoney of the Hoffman House in New York. The drink is made with a dash of orange bitters, 1 ounce sherry and 1 ounce dry vermouth, stirred with ice, strained, and served in a wine glass with a lemon peel.

Invented at Harry's Bar in Venice, Italy, around 1943.

By Bartender Gus Tops at the Hotel Metropole in Brussels. Gus also dispensed scarves with his silhouette and recipe of his cocktail.

Also known as Bismarck or Champagne Velvet. Created in 1861 at Brooks's Club, London.

Invented by Peter Petiot at Harry's New York Bar in Paris in 1921; he later became Captain of Bars at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City.

Created around 1960 at Harry's New York Bar in Paris, by Harry's son, Andy MacElhone.

By Johnny Solon of the Waldorf Bar in New York's Waldorf Astoria. Johnny created it the day after a trip to the Bronx Zoo.

This drink is a political statement as well as a cocktail. It translates to "Free Cuba," a status the country enjoyed in 1898 at the end of the Spanish-American war. Cuban/American relations were friendly around the turn of the century, when a US Army lieutenant in Havana mixed some light native rum with a new-fangled American soft drink called Coca-Cola and braced the libation with a lime.

Connived by workers from Bethlehem Steel during a malaria epidemic in the village of Daiquiri, near Santiago, Cuba.

By a bartender at Shoemaker's in Washington, D.C., for his customer, "Colonel Jim" Rickey, a lobbyist.

Created by Bill Doner in Newport Beach, CA. The Harvey Wallbanger started as a fad by Bill and was first served at a bar called The Office. Bill was last seen as Vice President of Marketing at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Before that, he ran a fleet of fishing boats in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Thank you Bill for a great drink and legend... wherever you are.

Originated at the Buena Vista Cafe in San Francisco, where the late Chronicle columnist and travel writer, Stanton Delaplane, often frequented. On a trip to Ireland during the early Fifties, Delaplane noted the custom of bolstering airport coffee with whiskey. Intending to elaborate on these crude airport toddies, he and his cronies at the Buena Vista settled on the perfect recipe: three sugar cubes, an ounce and a half of Irish whiskey, coffee, and a float of quickly agitated whipped cream.

If one requests this drink, you might receive a mix of gin and champagne. In the French trenches of World War I, however, gin was scarce but cognac and champagne were not. American doughboys soon discovered that a combination of the two produced an effect similar to getting zapped by an artillery piece known as a French 75.

Created by George Bullington, founder of Southern California's Bully's restaurant chain. During the Sixties, Kahlua-based coffee drinks were popular at his La Jolla location. Perhaps to defray costs, Bullington made a drink with a one-half jigger of Kahlua, one-half jigger of the less expensive but similar-tasting dark creme de cacao and a float of brandy and whipped cream. Bullington's Hawaiian customers started referring to the drink as a Coffee Kioki — "Kioki" meaning "George" in Hawaiian.

Named after the Mayor of Dijon (Major Kir), to help increase sales of Cassis.

Hails from Long Island, specifically the Oak Beach Inn in Hampton Bays. Spirits writer John Mariani credits bartender Robert "Rosebud" Butt as the inventor, whose original recipe — which calls for an ounce each of clear liquors (vodka, gin, tequila, light rum), a half ounce of triple sec, lemon juice, and a splash of cola — is still popular with young drinkers. (Though not with those that have to get up early the next day).