The fascinating history of five popular cocktails
As the craft of cocktail making continues to evolve, innovative riffs on classics, like the Negroni and Singapore Sling, continue to crop up. But where did they all come from in the first place?
At the drinks business, we take a deep-dive into the origin stories of five popular cocktails, from a Count’s simple request in Florence, to a nationwide American prank, to one woman’s journey from Moscow to Hollywood armed with 2,000 copper mugs.
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Moscow Mule
The year was 1941. Where are we? Los Angeles. And here begins the tale of two struggling entrepreneurs: John G. Martin had just snapped up the rights to Smirnoff Vodka (yes, the Smirnoff) in 1939, but the spirit was failing to take flight in the US. His mate, Jack Morgan, owned the iconic Cock ‘n’ Bull bar on the Sunset Strip, and wasn’t having much luck with his home-brewed ginger beer either; punters preferred ginger ale. The duo, alongside Rudolph Kunett, president of Pierre Smirnoff, Heublein’s vodka division, set out on a mission to revitalise vodka. What would happen if they mixed the spirit with ginger beer with a dash of lemon juice? “We three were quaffing a slug, nibbling an hors d’oeuvre and shoving toward inventive genius”, Morgan recalls. The result was a success, and several days later the concoction was named the Moscow Mule.
The origins of the cocktail’s iconic copper mug are debatable. One explanation is the tale of Sophie Berezinsky. She’d run a copper factory in Moscow with her father, but, struggling to sell her self-designed solid copper mug; she travelled to America, ‘the land of opportunity’, armed with 2,000 of them. On a fateful day in 1941, Berezinsky allegedly walked door-to-door in Hollywood in search of an eatery or watering hole interested in her cup. As luck would have it, she walked through the doors of the Cock ‘n’ Bull, who took to her product. However, others put the vessel’s popularity down to Martin’s marketing ploys. While travelling the US to promote the Moscow Mule, he snapped polaroids of bartenders posing with the copper mug and a bottle of Smirnoff vodka. Either way, the coolness of the copper perfectly keeps the liquid cold, enhancing its flavours. And while vodka was a hard win for America in the ‘40s – a country defined by whiskey and beer – the same can’t be said today: Woody Allen has sung the praises of the Moscow Mule, and even Oprah counts herself a fan.
2. Negroni
A Negroni is now a cocktail menu staple, and its journey continues to take astonishing twists, with a TikTok trend, led by actor Emma D’Arcy, driving popularity of the Negroni sbagliato – a version of the gin, vermouth and bitters drink that includes Prosecco — just two years ago.
And while some pinpoint its origins to Senegal or San Francisco, the most widely accepted story is that it all began in Caffè Casoni in Florence, in 1919. Back in the early 20th century, Count Camillo Negroni was allegedly a regular at the spot. And while there are no official accounts, as the story goes, one day, he asked barman Fosco Scarselli to strengthen his favourite Americano. Feeling creative, the mixologist allegedly topped the drinks with gin rather than soda water, and also switched out the lemon garnish with an orange slice, two simple yet monumental decisions that many mark as the birth of the Negroni aperitivo.
The cocktail rapidly won over Italian hearts, minds and palettes. An unrelated family with the surname Negroni acted quickly, founding a Negroni Distillery in Trevisio in 1919, and launching a ready-made version of the drink. While similar cocktails are mentioned throughout the 30s and 20s, such as the Nunueloni, and Camparinete, none seem to carry the prestigious Negroni name.
3. Old Fashioned
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True to its name, the Old Fashioned is one of the first cocktails created. But, funnily enough, it wasn’t always known by this name. To say it was avant-garde when served as a Whiskey Cocktail as early as 1800, would be an understatement. The initial variation of the drink was a straightforward mix of whiskey, bitters, sugars and water, and it wasn’t until later on in the century that bartenders began riffing out cocktails with wild and wonderful ingredients. But, traditionalists staunchly dug their heels in, insisting on ordering “old-fashioned whiskey cocktails” in their place, whiskey writer Robert Simonson, told Eater.
Some claim the Old Fashioned was invented in a gentleman’s club set up in 1881 Kentucky, in homage to bourbon distiller Colonel James E. Pepper, but, according to Barebell, the term “old fashioned cocktails” had already been used in the Chicago Daily Tribune in 1880 – one year before the club was even founded. Today, mixologists have invented variations of the cocktail that include Tequila, gin, gingerbread and even candyfloss. So we’ll see what the traditionalists have to say about that. Perhaps there’s a case for an ‘old-fashioned, old-fashioned’ version of the Old Fashioned.
4. Singapore Sling
The origins of this tipple are murky: It was sometime between 1899 and 1915 that the drink was created, but most credit its invention to Ngiam Tong Boon, who was the bartender at the Long Bar of the Raffles Hotel in Singapore. The drinks spot was a popular place to meet, situated near the road systems and railway that brought rubber and palm oil plantation owners over to Singapore from Malaysia on the weekends. Forward-thinker Tong Boon allegedly set out to create a beverage with “feminine flair” – cheery, bright and ruddy with cherry liquor and grenadine, and spiked with a shot of gin.
Despite this, in 2011, drinks writer David Wondrich alleged to find faults in this tale, after scouring an archive of Singaporean newspapers and digging up references to ‘Slings’ – like the Straits Sling (popularised by Robert Vermeire) – nearly twenty years before Tong Boon claimed to have invented it. Prior editor of the drinks business, Lauren Eads, thinks what began as a Gin Sling at Raffles, was transformed into the Straits ‘pink’ Sling (with Benedictine, cherry brandy and bitters added), and later earned the famous name ‘Singapore’. Eads believes the addition of pineapple and grenadine to be “completely arbitrary”, despite many associating them with the drink today.
5. Tom Collins
So, who was Tom Collins exactly? While some believe he may be a British gentleman, most think the cocktail dates back to America’s infamous Tom Collins Hoax in 1874. At the time, it was a sort of public ‘inside joke’ to spark conversation with the phrase, ‘have you seen Tom Collins?’ Predictably, the listener would react saying they didn’t know Tom Collins but the speaker would buckle down, and insist that Tom Collins was spreading gossip about them at a local bar.
Fired up, the affronted listener would power off to said bar in search of the offending party. It is thought that an ingenious bartender cottoned on to the hoax and dubbed a drink ‘Tom Collins’ so hot-headed punters would, without knowing, have ordered the gin-lemon-juice serve when they stormed into the bar. Revenge, clearly, is best served cold, and preferably served in a Collins glass over ice, too.
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