New Year’s Eve is here! Celebrations will happen all over the country as people will attend large parties, small parties, and all size parties in-between! Of course, alcohol will be served and it goes without saying that everyone should drink responsibly and designate a driver to get you home or rent a room at a local hotel if that’s where your party is happening at.
When speaking of drinks on New Year’s Eve, champagne is the favorite at the stroke of midnight. Other drinks will also be consumed and it’s interesting to note how some classics cocktails have gotten their names. So in that spirit, here are a few of the interesting stories on how these drinks got their names!
1. Screwdriver: the name goes back to the 1940’s in Turkey when some American engineers working in an oil field secretly added some vodka to their orange juice and mixed it with the help of a screwdriver!
2. Tom Collins: this story goes back to a prank that was going around in New York in 1874 where a person would tell someone that a person named “Tom Collins” was spreading rumors about them at a local bar. The person would go to the bar demanding to see “Tom.” The bartender, sick of explaining to the person that they were the victim of a joke, decided to create the gin cocktail and proceeded to mix and serve the drink to the people who demanded to see “Tom Collins.”
3. Harvey Wallbanger: in the 1950's, a Southern California bartender had a customer named Harvey who added Galliano to his Screwdriver. Harvey would get drunk and proceeded to stumble into the bar’s walls. The bartender, Donato Antone, decides to mix the vodka, Galliano, and o.j. together and call it the Harvey Wallbanger!
4. Manhattan: at a party in 1874 to celebrate the election the election of Samual J. Tilden’s as New York’s 25th Governor at the Manhattan Club, an enterprising bartender decided to mix whiskey, sweet vermouth, and bitters to create the cocktail. Appropriately, he named it the Manhattan!
There you go! Interesting trivia for you to dazzle your friends with at your New Year’s Eve party!