Sherry

Sherry (pronounced sher-ee)

(1) A fortified, amber-colored wine, originally from the Jerez region of southern Spain or any of various similar wines made elsewhere; usually drunk as an apéritif.  Technically, a white wine.

(2) A female given name, a form of Charlotte.

(3) A reddish color in the amber-brown spectrum.

1590-1600: A (mistaken singular) back formation from the earlier sherris (1530s), from the Spanish (vino de) Xeres ((wine from) Xeres).  Xeres is now modern-day Jerez (Roman (urbs) Caesaris) in Spain, near the port of Cadiz, where the wine was made.  The official name is Jerez-Xérès-Sherry, one of Spain's wine regions, a Denominación de Origen Protegida (DOP).  The word sherry is an anglicisation of Xérès (Jerez) and the drink was previously known as sack, from the Spanish saca (extraction) from the solera.  In EU law, sherry has protected designation of origin status, and under Spanish law, to be so labelled, the product must be produced in the "Sherry Triangle", an area in the province of Cádiz between Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, and El Puerto de Santa María.  In 1933 the Jerez denominación de origen was the first Spanish denominación officially thus recognized, named D.O. Jerez-Xeres-Sherry and sharing the same governing council as D.O. Manzanilla Sanlúcar de Barrameda.  The name "sherry" continues to be used by US producers where, to conform to domestic legislation, it must be labeled with a region of origin such as Oregon Sherry but can’t be sold in the EU (European Union) because of the protected status laws.  Both Canadian and Australian winemakers now use the term Apera instead of Sherry, although customers seem still to favor the original.  Sherry is a noun; the noun plural is sherries.

Sherry Girl (in bold two-copa ‘Sherry Stance’) and the ultimate sherry party.

Held annually since 2014 (pandemics permitting), Sherry Week is a week-long celebration of “gastronomical and cultural events” enjoyed by the “vibrant global Sherry community” which gathers to “showcase the wine’s incredible diversity, from the dry crispness of Fino to the velvety sweetness of Cream.”  Although the multi-venue Sherry Week is now the best known meeting on the Sherry calendar, worldwide, since 2014 some 20,000 events have taken place with the approval of the Consejo Regulador for Jerez-Xérès-Sherry and Manzanilla; to date there have been more than half a million attendees and in 2024 alone there were over 3,000 registered events in 29 countries in cities including London, Madrid, São Paulo, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Auckland and Shanghai.  Daringly, the publicity for the 2025 gatherings introduced “Sherry Girl” whose “bold two-copa ‘Sherry Stance’” is now an icon for the drink.  Sherry Girl is new but dedicated sherryphiles will be pleased to learn the traditional “Sherry Ruta” (Sherry route) remains on the schedule, again in “multi-venue routes offering exclusive pairing experiences”, described as “not a typical wine crawl but a triumphant strut with tipples, tastings, and tapas.”  For the adventurous, participants are able to use the interactive venue map to curate their own Sherry Ruta in their city of choice.  The 2025 event will be held between 3-9 November. 

Dry Sack, a sherry preferred by many because of its balance; straddling sweet and dry.  Purists tend to the dry finos while sweeter cream sherries are recommended for neophytes.

The name "sherry" continues to be used by US producers where, to conform to domestic legislation, it must be labeled with a region of origin such as Oregon Sherry but can’t be sold in the EU because of their protected status laws.  Both Canadian and Australian winemakers now use the term Apera instead of Sherry, although customers seem still to favor the original.  For the upper-middle class and beyond, sherry parties were a fixture of late-Victorian and Edwardian social life but the dislocations of the World War I (1914-1918) seemed to render them extinct. It turned out however to be a postponement and sherry parties were revived, the height of their popularity being enjoyed during the 1930s until the post-war austerity the UK endured after World War II (1939-1945) saw them a relic restricted moistly to Oxbridge dons, the genuinely still rich, Church of England bishops and such although they never quite vanished and those who subscribe to magazines like Country Life or Tatler probably still exchange invitations to each other's sherry parties.

For Sherry and Cocktail Parties, trade literature by Fortnum and Mason, Regent Street, Piccadilly, London, circa 1936.  The luxury department store, Fortnum & Mason, used the services of the Stuart Advertising Agency, which employed designers to produce witty and informative catalogues and the decorative art is illustrative of British commercial art in this period.

For the women who tended to be hostess and organizer, there were advantages compared with the tamer tea party.  Sherry glasses took less space than cups of tea, with all the associated paraphernalia of spoons, milk and sugar and, it being almost impossible to eat and drink while balancing a cup and saucer and conveying cake to the mouth, the tea party demanded tables and chairs.  The sherry glass and finger-food was easier for while one must sit for tea, one can stand for sherry so twice the number of guests could be asked.  Sherry parties indeed needed to be tightly packed affairs, the mix of social intimacy and alcohol encouraging mingling and they also attracted more men for whom the offer of held little attraction.  The traditional timing between six and eight suited the male lifestyle of the time and they were doubtless more attracted to women drinking sherry than women drinking tea for while the raffish types knew it wasn't quite the "leg-opener" as gin was renowned to be, every little bit helps.

In hair color and related fields, "sherry red" (not to be confused with the brighter "cherry red") is a rich hue on the spectrum from amber to dark brown: Lindsay Lohan (who would be the ideal "Cherry Girl" model) demonstrates on the red carpet at the Liz & Dick premiere, Los Angeles, 2012.

Sherry party planner.

Novelist Laura Troubridge (Lady Troubridge, (née Gurney; 1867-1946)), who in 1935 published what became the standard English work on the topic, Etiquette and Entertaining: to help you on your social way, devoted an entire chapter to the sherry party.  She espoused an informal approach as both cheap and chic, suggesting guests be invited by telephone or with “Sherry, six to eight” written on a visiting card and popped in an envelope.   She recommended no more than two-dozen guests, a half-dozen bottles of sherry, a couple of heavy cut-glass decanters and some plates of “dry and biscuity” eats: cheese straws, oat biscuits, cubes of cheddar.  This, she said, was enough to supply the makings of a “…jolly kind of party, with plenty of cigarettes and talk that will probably last until half past seven or eight.”

Cocktail Party by Laurence Fellows (1885-1964), Esquire magazine, September 1937.

The Sherry party should not be confused with the cocktail party.  Cocktail parties in drawing rooms at which Martinis were served often were much more louche affairs.  Note the elegantly sceptical expressions on the faces of the women, all of whom have become immured to the tricks of “charming men in suits”.  For women, sherry parties were more welcoming places.

Martini

Martini (pronounced mahr-tee-nee)

(1) A surname of Italian origin.

(2) A breech mechanism for a rifle (a clipping of “Martini-Henry”, a lever action, breech-loading single-shot rifle in service with the British Army 1871-1918).

(3) A rifle using similar features.

(4) A cocktail made with a mix of gin (or vodka) & dry vermouth, served usually with a green olive (the twist of lemon a more recent alternative and a dozen or more variations like peppermintini, chocolatini dirty martini and pornstar martini(!) have proliferated).

1885-1890:  Origin disputed; it may be an alteration of Martinez (an earlier alternate name of the drink) but is probably by association with the vermouth manufacturer Martini, Sola & Co. (later Martini & Rossi). Another theory holds it’s a corruption of Martinez, California, town where the drink was said to have originated.  Others claim it was first mixed in New York but then NYC claims lots of things happened there first.  Martini is a noun; the noun plural is martinis.

CCTV image capture, New York City, 24 July 2012.  Noted one-time (and since reformed) martini aficionado Lindsay Lohan enjoys a vodka martini.

By 1922 the martini had assumed its modern, recognizable form: London dry gin and dry vermouth in a ratio 2:1, stirred in a mixing glass with ice cubes, sometimes with addition aromatic bitters, then strained into a chilled cocktail glass.  Green olives were the expected garnish by the onset of World War II (1939-1945) with a twist of lemon peel often seen by the 1950s and from the 1930s, the amount of vermouth tended steadily to drop as the cult of the dry martini prevailed.  Today, a typical dry martini is made with a ration between 6:1 and 12:1.  Some were more extreme, the playwright Noël Coward (1899–1973) suggesting filling a glass with gin, then lifting it in the general direction of the vermouth factories in Italy.  The author Ian Fleming (1908–1964) had James Bond follow Harry Craddock's (1876–1963; long-time barman (now bar attendant) at London's Savoy Hotel) shaken, not stirred directive from The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930) but contemporaries, the author Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) and Franklin Roosevelt (1882–1945; US president 1933-1945), neither a stranger to a Martini, both recommended stirring although chemists observe the concept of “bruising the gin” has no basis in chemistry or any other branch of science.  The vodka martini came later.  It was first noted in the 1950s when known as the kangaroo cocktail, a hint at its disreputable colonial origins but normally reliable sources commend the blueberry vodka martini and purists concede this is the only martini to benefit from using sweet vermouth.  In 1966, the American Standards Association (ASA) released K100.1-1966, "Safety Code and Requirements for Dry Martinis," a humorous account of how to make a "standard" dry martini. The latest revision of this document, K100.1-1974, was published by American National Standards Institute (ANSI).  Flippant they may have been but they’re good guides to the classic method.

Compare & contrast: A classic gin martini (left) and a Stoli blueberry vodka martini (right)

Stoli Blueberry Vodka Martini Recipe

Ingredients

60 ml (2 oz) Stoli Blueberi Vodka
60 ml (2 oz) sweet vermouth
15 ml (½ oz) lemon Juice
3-5 fresh blueberries
Ice Cubes

Instructions

(1) Pour Stioli Blueberi Vodka, sweet vermouth and lemon juice into cocktail shaker and middle blueberries.
(2) Add ice cubes until shaker is two-thirds full.
(3) Shake thoroughly until mixture is icy.
(4) Strain and pour into chilled martini glasses.
(5) Skew blueberries with cocktail pick, garnish martini and serve.
(6) Add a little blueberry juice to lend a bluish tincture (optional).

Cocktail Party by Laurence Fellows (1885-1964), Esquire magazine, September 1937.

Unfairly or not, cocktail parties in drawing rooms at which Martinis were served gain a reputation as sometimes louche affairs.  Note the elegantly sceptical expressions on the faces of the women, all of whom have become immured to the tricks of “charming men in suits”.  For women, sherry parties were more welcoming places.

Martini Racing, the Porsche 917 and the Pink Pig

Porsche 917LH, Le Mans, 1970.

Unlike some teams which maintained a standard livery, Martini Racing sometimes fielded other designs.  One noted departure was the “hippie” or “psychedelic” color scheme applied to the Porsche 917LH (Langheck (Longtail)) which placed second at Le Mans in 1970 and proved so popular that the factory received requests from race organizers requesting it be entered.  Weeks later, across the Atlantic, the organizers of the Watkins Glen Six Hours wanted their own ‘hippie’ 917 but with the car in Stuttgart, Martini Racing took over another team’s car and raced in ‘hippie’ colors to ninth place on one day and sixth the next.

Porsche 917K, 1970.

Subsequently the scheme was reprised in another, even more lurid combination of yellow & red in another psychedelic design, this time to match the corporate colors of Shell, the teams sponsor.  This remains the only surviving psychedelic car, the factory’s Langheck 917 being converted to 1971 specifications and painted in Gulf Oil’s livery for Le Mans.  Like many other used 917s, subsequently it was scrapped by an unsentimental Porsche management.

Pink Pig Porsche 917-20, 1971.

Although it raced only once, the “Pink Pig” (917-20) remains one of the best remembered 917s.  In the never-ending quest to find the optimal compromise between the down-force needed to adhere to the road and a low-drag profile to increase speed, a collaboration between Porsche and France's Société d’Etudes et de Réalisations Automobiles (SERA, the Society for the Study of Automotive Achievement) was formed to explore a design combine the slipperiness of the 917-LH with the stability of the 917-K.  Porsche actually had their internal styling staff work on the concept at the same time, the project being something of a Franco-German contest.  The German work produced something streamlined & futuristic with fully enclosed wheels and a split rear wing but despite the promise, the French design was preferred.  The reasons for this have never been clarified but there may have been concerns the in-house effort was too radical a departure from what had been homologated on the basis of an earlier inspection and that getting such a different shape through scrutineering, claiming it still an “evolution” of the original 917, might have been a stretch.  No such problems confronted the French design; SERA's Monsieur Charles Deutsch (1911-1980) was Le Mans race director.  On the day, the SERA 917 passed inspection without comment.

Der Trüffeljäger von Zuffenhausen (The Trufflehunter from Zuffenhausen), a fibreglass display (some 45 inches (1150 mm) in length) finished in the Pink Pig’s livery.  It includes battery-operated LED (light emitting diode) fixtures within the nostrils, activated by a toggle switch under an access panel on the neck.  Weighing some 50 lb (23 kg), it measures (length x width x height) 45 inches x 20 x 32 (1140 x 510 x 810 mm).  In an on-line auction in 2024, it sold for US$3800.

Pink Pig Porsche 917-20, Le Mans, 1971.

At 87 vs 78 inches (2200 mm vs 2000 mm), the SERA car was much wider than a standard 917K, the additional width shaped to minimize air flow disruption across the wheel openings.  The nose was shorter, as was the tail which used a deeper concave than the “fin” tail the factory had added in 1971.  Whatever the aerodynamic gains, compared to the lean, purposeful 917-K, it looked fat, stubby and vaguely porcine; back in Stuttgart, the Germans, never happy about losing to the French, dubbed it Das Schwein (the pig).  Initially unconvincing in testing, the design responded to a few tweaks, the factory content to enter it in a three hour event where it dominated until sidelined by electrical gremlins.  Returned to the wind tunnel, the results were inconclusive although suggesting it wasn't significantly different from a 917K and suffered from a higher drag than the 917-LH.  It was an indication of what the engineers had long suspected: the 917K's shape was about ideal.

Pink Pig Porsche 917-20, Le Mans, 1971.

For the 1971 Le Mans race, the artist responsible for the psychedelia of 1970 applied the butcher’s chart lines to the body which had been painted pink.  In the practice and qualifying sessions, the Pig ran in pink with the dotted lines but not yet the decals naming the cuts; those (in the Pretoria typeface), being applied just before the race and atop each front fender was a white pig-shaped decal announcing: Trüfel Jäger von Zuffenhausen (the truffel hunter from Zuffenhausen); the Pink Pig had arrived.  Corpulent or not, in practice, it qualified a creditable seventh, two seconds slower than the 917-K that ultimately won and, in the race, ran well, running as high as third but a crash ended things.  Still in the butcher's shop livery, it's now on display in the Porsche museum.

Pink Pig Porsche 917-20, 1971.

Scuttlebutt has always surrounded the Pink Pig.  It's said the decals with the names of the cuts of pork and bacon were applied furtively were applied, just to avoid anyone demanding their removal.  Unlike the two other factory Porsches entered under the Martini banner, the Pink Pig carried no Martini decals, the rumor being the Martini & Rossi board, their aesthetic sensibilities appalled by the porcine lines, refused to associate the brand with the thing.  Finally, although never confirmed by anyone, it's long been assumed the livery was created, not with any sense of levity but as a spiteful swipe at SERA although it may have been something light-hearted, nobody ever having proved Germans have no sense of humor.

A coffee table in Pink Pig livery built on a M28 Porsche V8 engine (introduced in 1977 for use in the new 928 and, much updated, still in production).

Coffee tables in this form are not uncommon as display or promotional pieces and are sometimes advertised as “the gift for the man who has everything”; whether the pink paint will extend the attraction to many women seems improbable but, despite the perceptions, there are women who share the stereotypically male attachment to cars and their components.  Almost all coffee tables built around engine blocks use a glass top so the interesting bits are visible; if there’s thus a flat surface they are as functional as any of the same dimensions.  Some however have some of the mechanical bits protruding, usually just for visual impact although there have been some V8s and V12s where the heads are not installed, the open cylinders used as somewhere to place jars of sauces, dressings and such.  On this table, the intake manifold extends above the table-top through a surface cut-out so it reduces the usable area but the tubular intake rams are there to be admired.  Although all-aluminium, the M28 was built for robustness and was no lightweight: the table weighs some 240 lb (110 kg) and measures (length x width x height) 43 x 20 x 32 inches (1090 x 940 x 432 mm).  In an on-line auction in 2024, it sold for US$5300.

In the pink: 1983 Porsche 928S in  a “rauchquarzmetallic” wrap.  The 928 was the first Porsche to use the M28 V8. 

In production between 1977-1995, with a front-mounted, water-cooled V8, the 928 was a radical departure from the configuration of their previous road cars, all air-cooled flat fours or sixes and mostly with a true rear engine layout (the power-plant installed aft of the rear axle).  By the early 1970s the Porsche management team had come to believe (1) the fundamental limitations and compromises physics imposed on cars with so much weight at the rear extreme meant such engineering was a cul-de-sac, (2) demand for the by then decade-old 911 would continue to decline and (3) US regulators (then much in the mood to regulate) would soon outlaw rear engines and air-cooling, along with convertibles.  As things turned out, the election of Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989), a one-time Hollywood film star with fond memories of convertibles and some distaste for “excessive and intrusive regulations” was elected with the (never explicitly stated but well-understood) agenda to make America great again and a new mood prevailed in Washington, convertibles and much else surviving the expected fall of the axe.  The 928 was well-received by the press but like Toyota’s Lexus which never quite managed to achieve the reputation it deserved because it was “not a Mercedes-Benz” (actually perhaps “not what a Mercedes-Benz used to be”), the 928 suffered from being “not a 911”.  Although the 928 joined the list of machines out-lived by those which they were intended to replace, it was a success and in production for some eighteen years although in the twenty-first century depressed values in the after-market meant it became associated with drug dealers and people with maxed-out credit cards (at some points, certain used 928s were the cheapest 160 mph (260 km/h) cars on the market).  The perception has now improved and around the planet there are solid 928 communities although the members have nothing like the devotional feelings of the 911 congregation.

Porsche 917KH, 1971.

Using the 917KH (Kurz (Short)), the factory team in 1970 gained Porsche its first outright victory in the Le Mans twenty-four classic.  In the following year's race, Martini Racing won using a 917KH with a similar specification, running this time in the standard corporate livery.  The refinements to the 917K's aerodynamic properties had tamed whatever idiosyncrasies remained from the fast but unstable original and with still could have been extracted from the enlarged flat-12 but with the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (International Automobile Federation); international sport’s dopiest regulatory body), again changing the rules, the run in 1971 would be the 917’s last official appearance at Le Mans.

Porsche 917-10, 1972.

Although the bloodless bureaucrats at the FIA probably thought they'd killed off the 917, there was still much potential to be exploited and Porsche now devoted the programme to the Can-AM (Canadian-American Challenge Cup), conducted on North American circuits for unlimited displacement sports cars.  Run under Group 7 regulations, what few rules existed mostly were easy simultaneously to conform with while ignoring which is why the Can-Am between 1966-1973 is remembered as one of the golden eras of the sport.  Now turbocharged (as 917-10 & 917-30), in their ultimate form the cars were tuned in qualifying trim for some 1500 horsepower and raced usually with over 1000.  So dominant were the 917s that the previously successful McLaren team (their cars powered by aluminium big-block Chevrolet V8s as large as 509 cubic inches (8.3 litres) withdrew to focus on Formula One and there were doubts about the future of the series but as it turned out, the interplay of geopolitics and economics that was the first oil crisis meant excesses such as unlimited displacement racing was soon sacrificed.

Porsche 917K-81 (Kremer).

However, the 917 was allowed one final fling as an unintended consequence of rule changes for the 1981 sports car season.  It was a sort of revenge on the FIA because although never intended as a loophole through which the now ancient Porsche could pass, for one team the chance again to run the 917 at Le Mans proved irresistible.  The factory had retired the 917 after its win in the 1973 Can-Am, moving to the 936 platform for 1975 and while aware of the implications of the rule changes, weren't tempted by what they regarded a nostalgic cul-de-sac but those at Kremer Racing (founded in Cologne, FRG (Federal Republic of Germany, the old West Germany) by brothers Erwin (1937-2006) and Manfred Kremer (1940-2021)) were intrigued and, with factory support, built a new 917 to Group 6 specifications (enclosed bodywork and a 5.0 litre flat-12), labeling it the 917K-81.  Using Kremer own aluminium spaceframe, at the 1981 Le Mans 24 hour it was fast enough to qualify in the top ten and run with the leaders until a suspension failure forced retirement (the car eventually classified: 38th, DNF (did not finish).  The pace displayed was sufficiently encouraging for the car to be entered in that year's 1000 km event at Brand Hatch where it proved fast but, lacking the factory support, also fragile and it again recorded a DNF.  That was the end of the line for the 917 but, fast and loud, they remain a popular attraction whenever they appear.

Floret

Floret (pronounced flawr-it or flohr-it)

(1) A small flower.

(2) In botany, one of the closely clustered small flowers that make up the flower head of a composite flower, as the daisy or sunflower.

(3) One of the tightly clustered divisions of a head of broccoli, cauliflower. or similar vegetables

1350-1400: From the Middle English flouret & flourette (a little flower, a bud), from the Old French florete (little flower, cheap silk material), diminutive of flor (flower, blossom), from the Latin Latin flōrem, accusative singular of flōs, from the Proto-Italic flōs, from the primitive Indo-European bhel or bleh- (flower, blossom; to thrive, bloom), from bel- (to bloom).  The specific botanical sense "a small flower in a cluster" (as in something like a sunflower), dates from the 1670s.  The alternative spelling florette has been obsolete since the seventeenth century; in Italian the word became fioretto and in Dutch, floret.  Floret & floretum are nouns; the noun plural is florets.  

Cauliflower and Stilton Soup

Ingredients

80 gm butter, chopped
1 brown onion, coarsely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1¼ kg cauliflower, cut into florets
¼ cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
1 litre of vegetable stock
200 gm Stilton, crumbled (for soup)
200 gm Stilton cheese (for toast)
1 cup full-cream milk
2 tablespoons double-whipped cream

Instructions

(1) Melt butter in a heavy-based saucepan, add onion, garlic and oregano, season to taste with sea salt and freshly ground white pepper, then stir over medium heat for five minutes or until onion is soft.

(2) Add cauliflower and parsley, then cook, stirring occasionally, for ten minutes. Add stock and simmer for fifteen minutes or until florets are tender, then reduce heat to low, add Stilton, and stir until well combined. Add milk and cook until just heated through.

(3) Ladle soup among bowls, top with a dollop of cream and serve with toast thickly spread with room-temperature Stilton cheese.

Serve with:

Small glass of Dry Sack Sherry before, glass of Pinot Noir after.

Floret fashion: Lindsay Lohan in an embroidered Valentino gown at the premiere of Netfilx’s Falling for Christmas (2022), Paris Theater, Manhattan, New York City (left) (the pairing of the gown with a metallic quilted shoulder bag was much admired) and strand of Delphinium in salmon pink (right).  The genus name was from the New Latin Delphinium, from the Ancient Greek δελφίς (delphís) from δελφίνιον (delphínion) (dolphin), the name adopted because the florets were thought to recall the shape of a dolphin’s back.  The name was chosen by the Swedish zoologist & physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778 and styled as Carl von Linné after 1761) who first codified binomial nomenclature (the system of naming organisms), thus gaining the tag “the father of modern taxonomy”.  The genus is within the family Ranunculaceae and in common use they’re often referred to by the Dutch name larkspur.

Cocktail

Cocktail (pronounced kok-teyl)

(1) Any of various short mixed drinks, consisting typically of gin, whiskey, rum, vodka, or brandy, with different admixtures, as vermouth, fruit juices, or flavorings, usually chilled and frequently sweetened.

(2) A portion of food, as seafood served with a sauce, a mixture of fruits, or juice, served as the appetizer course of a meal.

(3) In pharmacology, a mixture or solution concocted of various drugs.

(4) In casual use, a thing mixed of several ingredients.

(5) Any eclectic mixture or miscellaneous collection.

(6) An evening dress in semi-formal style; probably now a LBD (little black dress) alternative.

(7) A horse with a docked tail (archaic).

(8) A horse of mixed pedigree (ie standardbred and not a thoroughbred (archaic)).

(9) A man of poor breeding pretending to be a gentleman (archaic).

(10) A species of rove beetle, so called from its habit of elevating the tail.

(11) As the Molotov Cocktail, an improvised incendiary weapon; a petrol bomb.

1806:  If one accepts what seems the orthodox view, the construct was cock + tail.  Cock (in this context) was from the Middle English cok, from the Old English coc & cocc (cock, male bird), from the Proto-West Germanic kokk, from the Proto-Germanic kukkaz (cock), probably of onomatopoeic origin.  It was cognate with the Middle Dutch cocke (cock, male bird) and the Old Norse kokkr (cock (and source of the Danish kok (cock) and the dialectal Swedish kokk (cock)). The development was influenced by the Old French coc, also of imitative origin.  Tail (in this context) was from the Middle English tail, tayl & teil, from the Old English tæġl (tail), from the Proto-Germanic taglaz & taglą (hair, fiber; hair of a tail), from the primitive Indo-European doḱ- (hair of the tail), from deḱ- (to tear, fray, shred).  It was cognate with the Scots tail (tail), the Dutch teil (tail, haulm, blade), the Low German Tagel (twisted scourge, whip of thongs and ropes; end of a rope), the German Zagel (tail), the dialectal Danish tavl (hair of the tail), the Swedish tagel (hair of the tail, horsehair), the Norwegian tagl (tail), the Icelandic tagl (tail, horsetail, ponytail) and the Gothic tagl (hair).  From this, came the general idea of the tail (rear) being the opposite of the head (front) which was generalized to many front-rear comparisons.

Cocktail Party by Laurence Fellows (1885-1964), Esquire magazine, September 1937.

Unfairly or not, cocktail parties in drawing rooms at which Martinis were served gain a reputation as sometimes louche affairs.  Note the elegantly sceptical expressions on the faces of the women, all of whom have become immured to the tricks of “charming men in suits”.  For women, sherry parties were more welcoming places.

That etymology of course relies on the simple conjecture that "cocktail" was an allusion to the decorative embellishments often appended to the glasses in which mixed drinks were served; often made of bar wastage such as fruit rind or the leaves of pineapples, the constructions were said vaguely to resemble a rooster’s tail feathers.  Zoological still but equestrian rather than avian, it’s been linked also to the earlier use of cocktail to describe a "horse with a docked tail" (one cut short, which makes it stand up somewhat like the cock's comb).  The linkage is that because that method of dressing the tail was most associated with ordinary working horses rather than the pure-blooded thoroughbreds, cocktail came to be extended to drinks that were a mixture rather than anything pure.  

What is however certain is the word is an Americanism and none of the attempts to explain the origin have found general acceptance.  HL Menken (1880-1956) listed several possibilities and the one which seemed most to appeal to him was a connection with the French coquetier (egg-cup) which, in English, was "cocktay".  That’s because a late eighteenth-century New Orleans apothecary, Antoine Amédée Peychaud (circa 1803-1883 and a confessed Freemason), conducted Masonic rituals in his pharmacy, mixing brandy toddies with bitters and serving them in an egg-cup.  Even those who find the etymology dubious admit it's an attractive tale.  The first known reference to a cocktail party is 1907 and since the 1920s cocktail has been used, formally and informally, to describe any concoction of substances (fruit, seafood, chemicals etc).  In motorsport, for almost a century, various high-octane fuel concoctions have sometime been allowed and colloquially they're known as the “exotic cocktails”.  What goes into the mixes has included gasoline (petrol, including high octane aviation fuel), methanol (known also as methyl alcohol), nitromethane (an often secret blend with several additives which creates famously explosive combustion characteristics and is banned in most categories), propane and nitrous oxide.  

The Cocktail Dress

Varations on the theme of the cocktail dress: Lindsay Lohan in vintage Herve Leger at Arrivals For Cartier Declare Your Love Day VIP cocktail reception, Cartier Store, New York, June 2006 (left) and in black Dion Lee cocktail dress with illusion panels and an off-the-shoulder silhouette, January 2013 (right).

Cocktail dresses straddle the gap between daywear and ball gowns.  Intended to be worn at formal or semi-formal occasions (classically of course, the “cocktail party”) including wedding receptions or dinner parties, they’re typically shorter in length than a gown, the hemline falling somewhere between just above the knee to mid-calf.  There’s no exact template for a cocktail dress but they should be identifiable by their simplicity and elegance, thus the utility of their versatility.  While not exactly post-modern, they appear in many fabrics and just about any style including empire, bandage, A-line or sack, featuring a range of necklines, sleeve lengths, and embellishments.  Historically, befitting the sophistication once associated with the cocktail party, the dresses were characterized by modesty and severity of line, the classic motif the tailored silhouette, relatively uncluttered by details.  Vogue magazine labeled the accessories (shoes, jewelry, a clutch and sometimes a wrap) the “cocktail dress ensemble”.  Things have has changed a bit and in recent decades, some discordant elements have intruded.

The Molotov Cocktail  

Molotov Coca-Cola Triptych (1997) by Alexander Kkosolapov (b 1943),

Describing a hand-held petrol-bomb, the term Molotov Cocktail was coined by the Finnish military during the Finnish-Soviet war (Winter War) of 1939-1940.  In Finnish it’s polttopullo or Molotovin koktaili, a reference to Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov (1890-1986; USSR Foreign Minister 1939-1949 & 1953-1956).  In 1939, Comrade Molotov claimed the Soviet Union was not dropping bombs on Finland, but merely airlifting bread to starving Finns.  The ordinance being dropped was an early type of cluster bomb which the Finns sarcastically dubbed Molotov's bread basket and soon after, they developed the petrol bomb as an improvised incendiary device suited especially to anti-tank operations in Finnish winter conditions.  That, they named the Molotov Cocktail, "a drink to take with the bread”.

The RHS

The cocktails called the Red-Headed Slut (RHS) or the Ginger Bitch are identical.  Although variations exist, the original is served on the rocks, poured over ice, either in a old fashioned (rocks) glass or a highball.  Quantities of ingredients can vary but the alcohol components should always be equal.

Ingredients

(1) One part Jägermeister
(2) One part peach schnapps
(3) Cranberry juice

Instructions

Combine Jägermeister and schnapps in glass full of cubed or crushed ice. Add cranberry juice to fill glass. Stir as preferred.

It may be served as a shooter, chilled and shaken but without ice.   One popular derivative includes equal parts Jägermeister, Schnapps, Crown Royal, and cranberry-flavored vodka.  Some substitute Chambord for the cranberry juice, and sometimes Southern Comfort for the schnapps.  For a sweeter taste, apricot brandy can be used instead of schnapps and best of all, there’s the Angry Red-Headed Slut which adds rum (over-proof or two shots to increase the degree of anger).

The Lindsay Lohan

Lindsay Lohan enjoying an eponymous.  Surely an affectionate homage, the Lindsay Lohan is a variation, the Lohanic version taking a classic RHS and adding a dash of Coca-Cola (usually expressed as "coke").  It should be always served in a highball.