1938 Famous New Orleans Drinks and how to mix'em (3rd printing) by Stanley Clisby Arthur

The word was not accepted by lexicographers until about the beginning of the present century, each pupdit advancing a different version as to its origin. Dr. Frank H. Vizetelly, noted editor of the Standard Dictionary and authority on words, writes me; The cocktail goes back at least to the beginning of the 19th century, and may date back to the American Revolution. It is alleged by one writer to have been a concoction prepared by the widow of a Revolutionary soldier as far back at 1779. He offers no proof of the statement, but a publication. The Balance, for May 13, 1806, describes the cocktail of that period as 'a stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters. It is vulgarly called hitter sling, and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion.' "Washington Irving in Knickerbocker (1809), page 241, said of the cocktail- 'They (Dutch-Americans) lay claim to be the first inventors of the recondite beverages, cock'tail, stone-fence, and sherry-cobbler.' Hawthorne re ferred to cocktails in The Blithedale Romance (1852), as did Thackeray in his The Newcomes (1854), but neither of these authors shed any light upon the origin of the term. The New England Dictionary on Historical Princi ples says that the origin of the word cocktail is lost. In this connection one writer refers to the older term cock tail, meaning a horse whose tail, being docked, sticks up like the tail of a cock. He adds: 'Since drinkers of cocktails believe them to be exhilarating, the recently popular song "Horsy, keep your tail up," may perhaps hint at a possible connection between the two senses of "cocktail".'

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