🌴 July Cocktail Spotlight #12: Cuba Libre 🌴 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Cuba Libre is told to be one of the most popular drinks in the world.  Originated in the year 1900 in Havana after the Spanish-American war ended. ⚔️ Translates to "Free Cuba" in reference to the independence call after the war. Bacardi for the longest time has claimed to have given the cocktail its name and to be the correct Rum pick for this cocktail. 🥃 One theory suggests that during the war off duty soldiers went out for drinks and ended up ordering a round of Rum with Cola and lime, toasting “Por Cuba Libre!” to celebrate its freedom. 🥂 This can be controversial as the war ended in 1898, but Coca-Cola supposedly wasn't available in Cuba until later in 1900. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Recipes: https://bartender101.wixsite.com/bartender101/cuba-libre

🎀 June Cocktail Spotlight #11: Cosmopolitan 🎀 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Cosmopolitan dates back to the 1930's where it was done entirely different than the current modern day Cosmo. Over the years many bartenders across the globe claimed to have invented this cocktail. 🌎 Around the late 1980's bartender Dale Degroff redefined this drink and made it popular when Madonna entered the bar he was working in. She ended up ordering one of his Cosmopolitan creations, capturing that moment via a picture that caused this cocktail to blow up in public. Next day in the morning Dale noted that he had many people reach out to him, asking for the recipe. 📝 Years later the show Sex and the City also showcased a scene where they are sipping from a Cosmopolitan, bringing even more light to this already well established cocktail. 📺 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Recipes: https://bartender101.wixsite.com/bartender101/cosmopolitan

🥃 May Cocktail Spotlight #10: Old Fashioned 🥃 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ This very basic held mixture that follows the classic cocktail script of a spirit, sugar, water and bitters dates back to the very beginning of cocktails, the 1800's. ⏰ Back then it was only really known as a Whiskey cocktail rather than the Old Fashioned name we call it nowadays, being originally consumed as the first thing in the morning to cure a hangover. Over time and with the raise of new liqueur creations bartenders around the world began to experiment with known drinks a lot more which led to this very simple Whiskey cocktail being transformed time and time again, reaching a point where it became just a complete different drink. 🆕 With customers being annoyed of seeing different iterations of the Whiskey cocktail every time they ordered one, they began requesting it to be made the Old Fashioned way. 🥃 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Recipes: https://bartender101.wixsite.com/bartender101/old-fashioned

🍸 April Cocktail Spotlight #9: Martini 🍸 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Be it dry, dirty, wet or even with the usage of Vodka instead of the traditional Gin there is no doubt that Martini offers one of the most cocktail variations out there. With the earliest dated iteration being made of Gin with a hint of dry Vermouth, stirred instead of shaken and some green olives to accompany the final taste. 🍸 One theory suggests that in the early 1860's people used to frequently visit the Occidental Hotel in San Francisco which housed bartender Jerry Thomas who was known for his special mixture of Gin and Dry Vermouth. ⛴️ After having spent some time at the hotel people usually went onward to the nearby town of Martinez, California which also ultimately became a part in the naming when the bartender decided to call his creation in reference to Martinez, the direction people were headed after consuming his creation. 🌉 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Recipes: Gin: https://bartender101.wixsite.com/bartender101/martini Vodka: https://bartender101.wixsite.com/bartender101/dirty-martini-vodka

March Cocktail Spotlight #8: Margarita ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ This classic cocktail originally stem from a much older drink that went by the name Daisy. Daisy was basically the same recipe as the now known Margarita, but with Brandy instead of Tequila. 🌵 One night in a Mexican bar a bartender had received a Daisy cocktail request. A happy little accident occurred when he had mistaken a bottle of Tequila with Brandy but so to his favor as it almost instantly turned into a new local bar hit. 🍸 Now he just had to turn up with a name for his new creation so he decided to name it after the Spanish word for Daisy, Margarita. :flag-spain: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Recipe: https://bartender101.wixsite.com/bartender101/margarita

⬜ February Cocktail Spotlight #7: Gin-Tonic ⬜ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ This very simple made cocktail of just two main ingredients holds a semi-medicinial origin on its back. ⚕️ It all started around 1800 when British soldiers who were stationed around colinial India had to regularly fight malaria and to keep them safe from this terrible disease they were given tonic water on a daily base which includes a healthy amount of quinine, a certified bitterness tasting medicine against this disease that prevents the parasite from growing any further until it's fully killed off. 🦠 Since most didn't like the bitter taste of this beverage they started mixing it up with some Gin to make it more bearable. 👍 That's when the Gin-tonic was born and still is to this day very popular and frequently ordered. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Recipe: https://bartender101.wixsite.com/bartender101/gin-tonic

🟨 January Cocktail Spotlight #6: Screwdriver 🟨 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ The Screwdriver, only consisting of two key ingredients was one of the very first Vodka based cocktails established which also holds a somewhat interesting story on its back when it comes to the surprising name this cocktail received. ⚙️ Back in the midst of the 20th Century hard working American oil workers out in the Persian gulf on their oil rigs loved their orange juice on the job which they had stocked in bulks. 🛢️ With work being very draining, dangerous as well as so far secluded from the rest of the world they decided that they had to step up their juice game to make it over the remaining rounds so they began mixing a small amount of Vodka which they had laying around on the side to their juice, but since they didn't have an actual bar at place with proper bar equipment at hand they instead had to resort to their own equipment. 🧰 That's where the screwdriver stepped into the spotlight seemingly successful as it deemed to stay for the future and present time even though nobody really uses screwdrivers anymore to stir up this precious mix. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Recipe: https://bartender101.wixsite.com/bartender101/screwdriver

🎄 December Cocktail Spotlight #5: Hot Toddy 🎄 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Originally the drink derived from India way back in 1610 when it was still controlled by British forces. 💂 More to the name which originates from the Hindi word "Taddy" that translates into a drink made out of fermented palm sap. One theory suggests that a doctor who went by the name of Robert Bentley Todd used to prescribe his patients a mixture of hot brandy, water, cinnamon, and sugar to cure their ongoing cold. 👨‍⚕️ Later down the line in 1786 to be exact where the drink was defined as an official alcoholic beverage made along with hot water, spices and sugar. Nowadays the cocktail's very wide spread across the globe with all kind of different variations available, enjoyed best during cold winter seasons and a great potion to battle any mean cold. 🩹 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Recipe: https://bartender101.wixsite.com/bartender101/items/hot-toddy

🏙️ November Cocktail Spotlight #4: Tom Collins 🏙️ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ We are writing the year 1875, New York in which the Tom Collins hoax was in full motion. Tom Collins who supposedly was a frequent bar visitor set himself the mission to spread as many false rumours around as just possible by using other random bar visitors as his main target. 😈 With victims slowly picking up on his fiasco through friends when they been told about a certain Tom Collins who had been badmouthing them in a local bar nearby which caused them to jump said bars in the hope of finding Tom Collins there. Obviously nobody ever was successful in finding this mysterious person as it was just a made up prank under company which took its rounds at the time. Eventually that made up hoax was even picked up by the news who furthermore brought attention to the already overhyped trend. 📰 A local barkeeper who happened to work in the area was severely annoyed by having people come in, asking if he had seen Tom Collins so he decided to take action. In response he created a cocktail which he named after Tom Collins and from now on whenever a guest would walk in asking for Tom Collins, they'd be given the cocktail instead. 🍹 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Recipe: https://bartender101.wixsite.com/bartender101/tom-collins Credits: [Elio] from [WeTakePhotos] (background images)