The Father Of The Cocktail

The cocktail was the invention of Colonel Carter of Culpeper Conrt House, Va. Many years ago in that locality there was a wayside irin named the Cock and Bottle, the semblance of an old English tavern, and which bore npon its swinging sign a cock and bottle, meaning thereby that draft and bottled ale could behadwithin - the "cock, " in old vernacular, rueauing the tap. He, therefore, who got the last and muddy portion of the tap was said to have received the "cocktail." Upon one occasion, when Colonel Carter was subjected to the indignity of having this muddy beverage put before him, he threw it angrily upon the floor and exclaimed, "Hereafter I will drink cocktails of my own brewicg, ' ' and then and there, inspired evideutly by the spirit of Ganymede, he dashed together bitters, sugar, the oil of lemon peel and some old Holland gin, and thns and then and there was the original cocktail