Guide to Cocktail Recipes For Novice: People have been mixing drinks for centuries, often to make an ingredient more palatable or to create medicinal elixirs.

People have been mixing drinks for centuries, often to make an ingredient more palatable or to create medicinal elixirs. It wasn't until the 17th and 18th centuries that the precursors of the cocktail (e.g., slings, fizzes, toddies, and juleps) became popular enough to be recorded in the history books. Though it's unclear where, who, and what went into the creation of the original cocktail, it started out as a specific drink formula rather than a category of mixed drinks.
The first published reference to the cocktail appears in the Farmer's Cabinet (Amherst, New Hampshire, April 28, 1803). The spoof editorial tells of a "lounger" who, with an 11 a.m. hangover, "...Drank a glass of cocktail - excellent for the head..." In his book, "Imbibe!," David Wondrich attributes the first known printed cocktail recipe to Captain J.E. Alexander in 1831. It called for brandy, gin, or rum in a mix of "...a third of the spirit to two-thirds of the water; add bitters, and enrich with sugar and nutmeg..."
The formula for the original "cocktail" recipe lives on. The brandy cocktail, for instance, is a mix of brandy, orange curaçao (the sweetener), and bitters, shaken with ice (the water). Since it's served most often with a lemon peel, it's technically a "fancy brandy cocktail." Replacing the base spirit creates other classics like the gin cocktail, rum cocktail, or whiskey cocktail.