"JamesFenimoreCooper" news and stories

"What's the history of the word 'cocktail'?" stirs up about as many variations as answers to the question "How do you like your martini? Since we are backyard farmers with a few feisty chickens, we love the cocktail legends containing references to poultry.

A British publication titled Bartender tells a great story in a 1936 printing. English sailors supposedly drank up some mixed concoctions in a Mexican tavern. They used a root resembling a rooster's tale called cola de gallo, Spanish for "cock's tail" to stir their drinks.

Another colorful story involves a New York tavern keeper Betsy Flanagan who was popular among the military during Revolutionary times. Her story is told in James Fenimore Cooper's "The Spy" (1821). She stole a neighbor's feathered friend to feed soldiers. After dinner, she garnished her drinks with the dinner bird's tale feathers. An unverified tale exists about poor folks ordering a pour from a ceramic container shaped like a rooster. This story is quite disgusting and we hope has no truth to it. What they got served was the remains of other customers' drinks dumped into the ceramic rooster whose tale contained a tap from which this nasty mix was served.