5 Curious Facts About the History of Cocktails

The art of mixing drinks goes way back.

A Midnight Modern Conversation, circa 1732, William Hogarth | Yale Center for British Art | Public Doman via Wikimedia Commons

Jim Meehan, writer, educator, and bartender, famously dubbed the last thirty years, the “Platinum Age of Cocktails,” an epithet that captures both the ongoing influence of the current craft cocktail movement, which began in the early 1990s, and honors the 19th century’s Golden Age of Cocktails.