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

"A glass of swizzle, the most salubrius beveragein hot weather." 1843. Swizzle

The name Swizzle has been applied to variously com pounded drinks, and while it is said the origin of the word is unknown it appears to be just another way of pronouncing Switchel, a drink made of molasses and water, sometime with the addition of vinegar, gin, and rum. Also applied to strong drinks sweetened and flavored with bitters. To make a Swizzle a swizzle-stick is necessary—a round wooden stick or dowel with swollen bottom end from which protrude five smaller sticks like the spokes of a wheel. The swizzle-stick is rotated rapidly between the palms to mix the drink thoroughly. A Swizzle, according to legend, is a liquid institution of Demerara, British Guiana, and became quite popular in the West In dies before it made its appearance in Old New Orleans. There were many references to the drink over a century ago, such as "The boys finished the evening with some fine grub, swizzle, and singing." (1813), and a British traveler. Lady Brassy, more intrigued with the way the drink was concocted with a swizzle-stick than with the drink itself, wrote in 1885: "I mean to take home some 'swizzle-sticks.' They are cut from some kind of creeper, close to a joint, where four or five shoots branch out at right angles, so as to produce a star-like circle. The whole ismixed with powdered ice, and stirred or 'swizzled' until it froths well." As early as 1800 this same drink was known as Swit chel, an Englishman noting that "the dauntless Yankees still drank their switchell," so that derivation of stvizzel from stvitchel seems plain. "We were never 'groggy', 'intoxicated', 'swizzled', or 'tight', but once." 1843. Eighty-two