Cocktail Theory

Great. Like there weren't enough unproven theories as to the origin of the word "cocktail" Jared Brown comes up with another one.

Because a cocktail is a "bittered sling" (the sling being a drink category of its own) and bitters dashers bottles used a feather (such as a rooster's tail feather) as the pouring spout, Jared proposes the origin of the word could come from the feather in the bitters bottle.

Read his theory here.