Quote:In 1779 a woman by the name of Betsy Flanagan owned a tavern near Yorktown, New York. Men from Washington's army used to hang out at this establishment to relax their worries and energize themselves with concoctions of alcohol known as bracers. Many of the officers used to tease old Betsy about the chickens that one of her close neighbors. Seems the neighbor was a Tory. Well, one day she decided to make them all eat their words.

Back in those days, no true patriot would buy anything from a Tory. It just wasn't done. Political correctness and all. So, Betsy arranged a wonderful chicken dinner for them. When they finished feasting on the delicious birds they continued their celebrations at the bar with more bracers. To their merriment they found each bottle or 'bracer' festooned with a cock's tail from the Tory chicken farmers coop. They laughed and laughed and a toast was called for and one of the men (I think he was French) exclaimed:
 
"Vive le cock tail"

Betsy was a popular gal it seems. Since that day forward all of Betsy's concoctions were known as cocktails, a name that we still use today to describe the inebriating drinks we so love to imbibe from time to time.