Alcohol is one of the most popular ways people around the world like to have their leisure time and have some fun filled moments with their near and dear ones. Booze slows down our inhibitions and makes people more talkative and sociable. Booze has its own pros and cons, in one way where it is considered to be extremely hazardous for health, booze is considered to be one of the most sociable drinks at parties or during events and occasions. Having booze is one way to get friends and people together, until and unless it stays in limits and the alcohol content in the body doesn’t go over the top. Not many people prefer having alcohol neat and in the raw form, therefore cocktails are made to make the alcohol taste better and not so harsh. There are various types of cocktails available in different colours and flavours to get people into consuming alcohol in a limited quantity and at the same time give them a nice and delicious taste of the drink without making the drink too hard to consume and digest. Because of the better taste and the perfect mixture of flavoured drinks with alcohol, cocktails are preferred by a large number of people all over the world, which has resulted in the naming of cocktails based on some strange and weird legends and stories. Here is a list of the top 10 strange legends about certain cocktails which are consumed and loved by a large section of people in the world.
1. Pina Colada
Pina Colada is considered to top the list of the best cocktails available in the world today, which is a combination of pineapple juice, rum and coconut. The amazing taste behind this drink is actually the coconut milk, which also served as the main unique selling point for a businessman named Don Ramon Lopez, who owned a company which sold a premade cream of coconut drink called Coco Lopez. He encouraged various bartenders to use this cream and try out variations with alcohol and experiment with it, and that’s how Pina Colada was known to the world.
2. Zombie
The Zombie is a cocktail made of rum and with a certain kind of fruit juice, and because of this the drink does not really have a standard recipe. The drink was invented by a man known as Don the Beachcomber, who only told parts of the recipes to bartenders and never revealed the actually true recipe to anyone. This secrecy led to a number of variations and changes in the drink, no one knew the secret to this zombie madness.
3. Cosmopolitan
The Cosmopolitan is one of the tastiest and most favourite cocktails of all, which is a combination of vodka, cranberry juice with triple sec and lime juice, to make the cocktail taste sour and at the same time add a dollop of sweetness to it. It is extremely fruity in nature and taste, and the legend behind this tasty cocktail goes to the gay community in Massachusetts in the 1970’s who are assumed to be the creators behind this drink. Though this might not be completely true as similar drinks with variations such as gin instead of vodka makes the stories of the drink’s originations vague to know.
4. Screwdriver
The Screwdriver is a very simple cocktail of a combination of vodka and orange juice. There are a lot of stories rumoured behind this drink’s name, one being that the Screwdriver came into being when the miners and the blue collar workers started mixing vodka and orange juice with their screwdrivers. Another story goes that the Screwdriver along with other vodka based beverages was invented by John Martin, who was in the attempt to make Smirnoff Vodka the biggest brand in the US.
5. Mojito
The Mojito is a rum based cocktail with mint leaves which are mixed with lime juice, sugar and soda water. This cocktail originated from Cuba, and the legend goes that this drink was supposedly consumed by sailors, who took to this cocktail to get rid of a scurvy problem which was very prevalent amongst them due to the sea, and this citrus based drink was one of the best preventions from the problem.
6. Irish Coffee
Amongst all the cocktails, the Irish coffee could claim a true story behind its name. Long age when a flight was delayed in Ireland with a bunch of American passengers, the bartenders mixed whiskey in the coffee of the stranded passengers thinking that it would warm them up a bit. Surprisingly, the American passengers loved the taste of that particular coffee and assumed it to be Brazilian; before they ended up asking the bartended who revealed to them that it was an Irish Coffee. The word was taken back to the United States and well, that’s how Irish coffee came about in this world of alcohol.
7. The Manhattan
The Manhattan is a combination of vermouth, whiskey, bitters along with a maraschino cherry for garnishing. The rumour behind this cocktail is that Winston Churchill’s mother was celebrating in New York long before the Second World War, and because his mother had a sweet tooth, this drink was made and invented to suit her palate. This story unfortunately does not have any truth behind it because as a matter of fact Winston Churchill’s mother was at England and she was pregnant with Churchill in her womb.
8. Gin and Tonic
As simple as its name, the story behind this particular cocktail could actually hold true as the British soldiers fighting in the Indies used to suffer a lot of the disease of malaria. Because the disease is deadly in nature, the soldiers used to have tonic water which comprised of ‘quinine’ as the tonic water helped fight against malaria. But tonic water if consumed plain tastes awful, and therefore the soldiers used to add a little of gin to this tonic water with quinine and gave birth to the famous cocktail, Gin and Tonic.
9. Bloody Mary
One of the most famous cocktails around the world, Bloody Mary is a mix of vodka, tomato juice and some selected spices. The story goes that this cocktail is named after Queen Mary and that her brutal attempts to spread and return Catholicism to England makes the red tomato juice represent blood, though there is no real evidence to support this legend.
10. Harvey Wallbanger
The Harvey Wallbanger cocktail is very similar to the screwdriver, which is a tasty combination of vodka and fresh orange juice with a yellow liqueur named Galliano added to the mix. The legend goes that a guy loved to surf and used to drop in at a local bar to have his usual drink, the screwdriver mixed with a bit of Galliano. After drinking, he used to go around smashing and stumbling into things in the bar, and also used to bang his head on the wall after getting pretty wasted. Therefore, the name Harvey Wallbanger because of Harvey’s drunken antics.
Leave a Reply