Betwixt and Between latest and greatest is this week. Hi, I'm Tuesday, quite possibly the weirdest day of the week. Every Tuesday is painfully slow at work, and my roomie and I, still recovering from a weekend of debauchery (Texas peeps in town) are keeping a low profile this eve. Not much to report...
Spent a lovely Saturday in the Newport Harbor with the visitors and usual suspects drinking champagne and ogling the mega-yachts in the Newport Harbor. Roomie whipped up a few cheese plates and we cruised around in style. We were able to dock the boat at the Cannery, a local favorite restaurant, and went inside for a cocktail. I had a cocktail made from Pear vodka and Elderflower syrup that tasted like drinking a flower, sounds weird, but it was mucho good. Off we went for a lovely sushi dinner and some additional cocktails after that. We took a cab home.
Speaking of the word cocktail, I was recently curious as to the origin of this word and looked it up on good ole wiki. Wasn't too pleased with the result because it didn't provide a definite. Oh well. Here are some of the possible origins:
# 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 (cocktail) to stir the local spirits and punches before serving.
# A tavern near Yorktown, 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 King George of England. 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 many varied feathers in exciting colours as a cocktail has varied exciting 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.
In un-related news, I've been doing some research on the career and You Tubery of Ann Coulter, and it turns out, as I suspected, that yes she is a biiiiiiiatch!
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