Who Invented the Cocktail?

Who invented the cocktail? This has long been a subject of controversy among the bibliographers of “Booze,” but all the evidence points to John Welby Henderson, a native son of North Carolina, as the originator of the modern American concoction. Sixty-five years ago at the old Palo Alto Hotel at Bladensburg, Md., Henderson is said to have mixed the first cocktails and they were swallowed with great relish by Col. Maglone, U.S.A., Congressman Mattingly of Georgia, and several other gentlemen congregated at the Palo Alto Hotel bar. This hostelry was then a place of refreshment for dueling parties, among whom the cocktail speedily became popular, and spread throughout the United States and Canada.