A-Z Guide To Cocktail Names & Origins (Part 1)

Yves and Claudine Camdeborde's Relais Saint-Germain includes three operations: an elegant hotel with 22 roomy rooms with mirrored walls and exposed wooden beams (the most luxurious is the Marguerite de Navarre, with its own private terrace), and a pair of Paris's most buzzed-about dining spots. There are two ways to dine at the enormously popular Le Comptoir: jostle for one of its 20 tightly-packed seats during the daytime (when it's first-come, first-serve and offerings include delicious bistro dishes like pâtés and terrines and lightly grilled tuna served with a bright anchovy sauce) or book some six months in advance for the evening prix-fixe menu which features plates like roasted Normandy scallops with algae butter. In 2009, the couple opened the adjacent L'Avant Comptoir, their standing room only "hors d'oeuvres bar."

Victorian homes and the fashion mecca of Newbury Street, Back Bay is a classic Boston neighborhood. It's also ground zero for some of the city's finest dining, including top restaurants like L'Espalier (pictured), Clio and Bistro du Midi.

With so many types of deals available, subscribing to Living Social in order to find a great restaurant deal is like playing roulette. If you're looking for the culinary jackpot, it's simply not worth it to have your inbox inundated with spa and bowling coupons with the hope of occasionally happening upon a cheap and delicious meal. 

Dummy 23.

Black Trumpet mushrooms are especially delicious and unique.  They have a fruity aroma and a smoky rich flavor.  They are exceptional when dried, ground and used as a coating on meat for searing or to flavor sauces. 

A cocktail popularized at the University of Alabama made with sloe gin, amaretto, Southern Comfort, and orange juice.

A cocktail reputedly first concocted at Arnaud's restaurant in New Orleans immediately following the end of Prohibition.

A cocktail said to have been invented about 1910 by bartender Charlie Mahoney of the Hoffman House in New York. The drink is made with a dash of orange bitters, 1 ounce sherry and 1 ounce dry vermouth, stirred with ice, strained, and served in a wine glass with a lemon peel.

By Bartender Gus Tops at the Hotel Metropole in Brussels. Gus also dispensed scarves with his silhouette and recipe of his cocktail.

Also known as Bismarck or Champagne Velvet. Created in 1861 at Brooks's Club, London.

Created around 1960 at Harry's New York Bar in Paris, by Harry's son, Andy MacElhone.

This drink is a political statement as well as a cocktail. It translates to "Free Cuba," a status the country enjoyed in 1898 at the end of the Spanish-American war. Cuban/American relations were friendly around the turn of the century, when a US Army lieutenant in Havana mixed some light native rum with a new-fangled American soft drink called Coca-Cola and braced the libation with a lime.

By a bartender at Shoemaker's in Washington, D.C., for his customer, "Colonel Jim" Rickey, a lobbyist.

Originated at the Buena Vista Cafe in San Francisco, where the late Chronicle columnist and travel writer, Stanton Delaplane, often frequented. On a trip to Ireland during the early Fifties, Delaplane noted the custom of bolstering airport coffee with whiskey. Intending to elaborate on these crude airport toddies, he and his cronies at the Buena Vista settled on the perfect recipe: three sugar cubes, an ounce and a half of Irish whiskey, coffee, and a float of quickly agitated whipped cream.

Created by George Bullington, founder of Southern California's Bully's restaurant chain. During the Sixties, Kahlua-based coffee drinks were popular at his La Jolla location. Perhaps to defray costs, Bullington made a drink with a one-half jigger of Kahlua, one-half jigger of the less expensive but similar-tasting dark creme de cacao and a float of brandy and whipped cream. Bullington's Hawaiian customers started referring to the drink as a Coffee Kioki — "Kioki" meaning "George" in Hawaiian.

Named after the Mayor of Dijon (Major Kir), to help increase sales of Cassis.