These days, the word “cocktail” is synonymous with “mixed drink,” but it wasn’t always so. A cocktail used to be a single thing, a specific recipe as opposed to a category, first defined in 1806 as “spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters.” That was a cocktail. So if you walked into a tavern and asked after a Whiskey Cocktail, you wouldn’t get a list of drinks, you’d get a cup with whiskey, sugar, water (or ice, pending availability), and bitters.
In the first drinks book ever published, in 1862, Jerry Thomas includes the recipes for 13 versions of these so-called “cocktails,” mostly just enumerating different base spirits with near-identical instructions (i.e. Brandy Cocktail, Gin Cocktail, Champagne Cocktail, etc), but in the 1876 edition of his book, he adds an appendix with a fresh set of drinks. “The following additional recipes include all the latest inventions in Beverages,” he declares, before introducing us to a set of Collins’, Fizzes, Daisies, and, notably, Improved Cocktails, so named for their addition of two trendy new ingredients, maraschino liqueur and absinthe. So add those two ingredients to an Old Fashioned and you’ve got yourself and Improved Whiskey Cocktail, a drink with touch of earthy, fruity perfume in the form of maraschino liqueur and some piquant spice and depth from absinthe.
2 oz. rye whiskey
0.375 oz. maraschino liqueur
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
2 dashes (or about ½ tsp.) of absinthe
Put as large a piece of ice as you have that will fit into a rocks glass. Carefully add the liquids and stir for about 10 seconds to combine and begin to chill. Take a lemon peel, express the oils over the top of the drink, give the peel a twist, and place it into the drink.
Dining and Cooking