A peep into the magnificent world of Rafayel cocktails

The earliest known printed use of the word cocktail was in The Farmer's Cabinet on April 28, 1803. Drank a glass of cocktail—excellent for the head...Call'd at the Doct's. found Burnham—he looked very wise—drank another glass of cocktail.

The first "cocktail party" ever thrown was allegedly by Mrs. Julius S. Walsh Jr. of St. Louis, Missouri, in May 1917. Mrs. Walsh invited 50 guests to her home at noon on a Sunday. The party lasted an hour, until lunch was served at 1 pm. The site of this first cocktail party still stands. In 1924, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis bought the Walsh mansion at 4510 Lindell Boulevard, and it has served as the local archbishop's residence ever since.

''When we drink, we get drunk. When we get drunk, we fall asleep. When we fall asleep, we commit no sin. When we commit no sin, we go to heaven. Sooooo, let’s all get drunk and go to heaven!''

A cocktail is an alcoholic mixed drink that contains two or more ingredients — at least one of the ingredients must be a spirit, a cocktail is never two or more Alcopops mixed together. 

The earliest definition of cocktail was in the May 13, 1806, edition of the Balance and Columbian Repository, a publication in Hudson, New York, in which an answer was provided to the question, "What is a cocktail?". It replied:  Cocktail is a stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters—it is vulgarly called a bittered sling and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion, inasmuch as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head. It is said, also to be of great use to a Democratic candidate: because a person, having swallowed a glass of it, is ready to swallow anything else.

 

"He was white and shaken, like a dry martini"

- PG Wodehouse

"The three-martini lunch is the epitome of American efficiency. Where else can you get an earful, a bellyful and a snootful at the same time?”

- Gerald R. Ford 

"Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water."

- WC Fields

I like to drink martinis. Two at the most. Three I'm under the table, four I'm under the host.

- Dorothy Parker

Our mixologist, Albert

A mixologist is a bartender or someone who specializes in the creation of cocktail recipes. The term usually implies special expertise and professionalism.