Two hundred fifty years is a long time to blend a melting pot of flavor. As time marches on, it’s easy to forget which flavors are native grown, globally inspired, or the result of American innovation! That’s why we’ve launched 250 American Heritage Flavors, our series that picks 250 flavors with American roots and gives each one its spotlight. As we move ahead to #5 in the series, we explore how cocktail culture caused a stir in the United States. Join us in a round of cocktail flavors!
Americans have never (well, almost never) been shy about taking a nip from the bottle. Alcohol and mixed drinks are part of the flavor fabric of this nation. The origin of each cocktail flavor tells us a lot about the regional lifestyle and culture of people living across the USA. One drink on this list was stirred in a horse bucket in Savannah. One was invented to solve a rum problem during World War II. One came from a bar in Oakland, California. Every single one of them lives on today as a flavor people enjoy, whether in its original tipsy format or as a flavoring for nonalcoholic beverages or foods.
NOTE: If you missed our earlier showcases, catch up with American Pie Flavors, Classic Soda Flavors, Berry Flavors, and Summer Fruit Flavors.
10 American Cocktail Flavors Worth Knowing
Cosmopolitan
The Cosmo is the baby of this group. Most drink historians point to Toby Cecchini, a young bartender at a downtown New York restaurant, who mixed his version in 1988 using citrus vodka, orange liqueur, lime, and a splash of cranberry. Ten years later the hit TV show Sex In the City featured it on several episodes. Suddenly, pink drinks in martini glasses were everywhere and became a symbol of urban sophistication and easy glamour. That famous rose shade comes from the splash of cranberry juice – a fruit that is also native to North America.
Hurricane
The Hurricane is pure New Orleans joie de vivre! During World War II, whiskey was hard to get, but rum from the Caribbean was everywhere. New Orleans Historical explains that a bar owner had to buy 50 cases of rum just to get one case of whiskey, so the crew at a French Quarter bar built a big fruity rum drink to use up the extra. They poured it into a tall glass shaped like a hurricane lamp, and that is how the drink got its name. If you visit New Orleans today you can enjoy the drink at its birthplace, the famous Pat O’Brien’s bar.
Margarita
People still argue about where the first Margarita was poured, but nobody argues about the frozen one. In 1971, Dallas restaurant owner Mariano Martinez rebuilt a soft serve ice cream machine so his bartenders could keep up with the crowd. It worked so well that the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History now keeps the original machine in its collection. The margarita is just one example of how a global cocktail flavor adapted and evolved to meet the needs of a new audience.
Daiquiri
An American mining engineer named Jennings Cox was working in Cuba in 1898 when he ran out of gin. He mixed local rum with lime and sugar instead, and named the drink after Daiquiri, the little town where he lived. Eleven years later a Navy doctor named Lucius Johnson tasted it during a stop in Cuba and carried the recipe home to Washington, D.C. According to the Naval Historical Foundation, the drink took off there and never slowed down.
Mai Tai
Here’s a shocker: the Mai Tai is NOT from a tropical island! Victor Bergeron, known as Trader Vic, mixed the first one in Oakland, California, in 1944. A friend visiting from Tahiti took a sip and said “maita’i roa ae,” which means out of this world, and the name stuck. As Smithsonian Magazine points out, the whole tiki bar idea was invented right here in the United States and helped drive the midcentury cocktail trend. Today you can capture that tiki essence with our many tropical fruit flavors.
Whiskey Sour
A sour is one of the simplest ideas in drink making: a spirit, something sour, and something sweet. Smithsonian Libraries notes that Jerry Thomas published the first mixology book in America in 1862, which included recipes for brandy and gin sours. By 1870 a Wisconsin newspaper mentioned a “whisky sour” with no explanation at all: a sure sign that the drink was already popular among the local readers. If you want to craft an authentic RTD whisky sour, don’t forget to add our natural lemon flavor.
Mint Julep
Cool mint, sweet sugar, and crushed ice in a frosty silver cup have been a Southern staple since the 1800s. The Julep became the signature drink of the Kentucky Derby in 1938 and has stayed there ever since. Now for a surprise! The Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center shares this origin story for the paper straw. Innovator Marvin Stone got tired of soggy rye grass straws falling apart in his Julep, so he wrapped paper around a pencil and patented the paper drinking straw in 1888.
Planter’s Punch
This rum punch traveled up from the Caribbean, but the American South claims a piece of it too. The National Park Service says the famous Planter’s Punch may have been born at the Planter’s Hotel in Charleston, South Carolina, a building from around 1809 that is now the Dock Street Theatre. Bartenders remember the recipe with a little rhyme: one of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of weak. That means 1 part lime to 2 parts sugar, 3 parts rum, and 4 parts water or ice.
Chatham Artillery Punch
Savannah, Georgia, gave us this punch with an elite reputation. It’s named for the Chatham Artillery, which the Georgia Historical Society calls the oldest military organization in the state, formed in 1786. The unit escorted George Washington through Savannah in 1791 and welcomed the Marquis de Lafayette in 1825. During their celebrations for the domestic and visiting dignitaries, the artillery served punch to get the party started. Wine, rum, brandy, whiskey, tea, lemon, and sugar all went into one giant bowl, often quite liberally. Naturally, Chatham Artillery guests learned to sip their drinks slowly!
Sidecar
Brandy, orange liqueur, and lemon juice make one of the tidiest cocktail flavors ever built. The Sidecar showed up in bar books around 1922, and the story says it was named for an army officer who rode to the bar in a motorcycle sidecar. Its American chapter came next. Prohibition closed U.S. bars from 1920 to 1933, so American bartenders went to work in Europe and brought drinks like this one home when the law changed.
Cocktail Flavors Without the Alcohol
Not ever cocktail has to have spirits! These classic drinks are about flavor first, and many can be reinterpreted into nonalcoholic beverages and even foods.
Why These Cocktail Flavors Work in Modern Products
Look closely and you will notice these drinks are really flavor formulas. Rum with brown spice. Bourbon with mint. Tequila with lime and salt. Brandy with citrus. Those combinations taste great in plenty of places that have nothing to do with a bar, including sparkling waters, gummies, frozen desserts, sauces, and coffee drinks.
Better yet, shoppers can now enjoy every one of these tastes alcohol free. Our alcohol-inspired flavors capture the character of rum, bourbon, tequila, gin, and more without the proof. Ready to build something? Our Flavor R&D team does this every day.
The Story Behind These Cocktail Flavors
Ten drinks. Ten American stories about necessity, innovation, travel, and neighbors throwing a party. That is exactly what we set to collect in 250 American Heritage Flavors: 250 tastes that show how this country came together, one glass and one bite at a time.
Ready to put these cocktail flavors to work in your next launch? Start with the 7 Essential Steps in Beverage Development, browse our World of Flavor, and then request a sample so your team can taste the difference. Post number six is already in the shaker.
Interested in cocktail flavors? Request a sample!
