Claims to who 'made the first cocktail'.

1) At the time of the American civil war, in 1776, Betsy Flanagan made a refreshing drink by mixing apple juice with rum and rye. She served it to Washington's officers and because she dressed it with a feather from a rooster, it became known as a cocktail drink.

2) Around 1795, in New Orleans, an apothecary called Antoine Amedee Peychaud, made drinks that became very popular. The ingredients were mixed in an egg-cup (coquetier in French). New Orleans is well known for being multilingual, and English speakers shortened coquetier to cocktay and then cocktail. In 1803, the name appeared in print in Farmer's Cabinet (April 28th, Amherst, New Hampshire) which contains the phrase "drank a glass of cocktail - excellent for the head."

3) It is said, by the drinks manufacturer Bacardi that the cocktail was invented in Daiquiri, Cuba in 1898 by Jennings Stockton Cox, a mining engineer, who mixed cane sugar, fresh lime juice and Bacardi rum.

4) It was made as a medicine by Richard Drake in 1586, the first cousin of Sir Francis Drake, therefore (as is often done today) it was administered on a spoon. Because it was being given to men/sailors, the spoon was a large wooden one; with a typical wooden cock's tail handle.

Evidence that the First cocktail was made in 1586

In 1586, as Drakes ships were on the way to Havana, there was an epidemic onboard the ships. It was know that local Indians had a remedy for such sickness, and a medicinal mix (subsequently called as El Draque) was made from local ingredients; aguardiente de cana, lime, sugarcane juice and mint. In South America the mint is known as hierbabuena which translates as good herb.

References to 1586, the medicinal cocktail and the epidemic
Extracts of research by Gail Swanson about Drakes large fleet in 1586 states that due to an epidemic onboard his ships, and perhaps the fortifications he saw at Havana, Drake changed his plan from an intended raid on one last Spanish town (Havana).

The sailors were very sick and so the fleet was not fit for fighting. The epidemic may well have been dysentery and sailors would also have been suffering from or weakened by scurvy.

At that time, in South America, the native Indians had a cure for dysentery; a concoction made from chuchuhuasi bark, with aguardiente de cana which can be described as raw rum. A literal translation is fire water from sugar cane.

It is recorded that in 1586, Richard Drake made a medicine using aguardiente de cana, limes, mint and sugarcane juice. Scurvy is caused by a vitamin C deficiency, and drinking lime juice would have been a cure. Around that time (the 1700's) English sailors were called limeys, this was due to their having limes in their rations.

The medicinal concoction was effective, and it continued to be used and became known as El Draque. It is also recorded that this medicinal mix was taken during cholera epidemics:-

In one of the worst cholera epidemics to affect the population of Havana, the narrator Ramon de Paula writes: "Every day at eleven o'clock, I consume a little Draque made from aquardiente and I am doing very well."

Conclusion

The first cocktail was a medicinal concoction made by Richard Drake on or shortly after the June 4th 1586. It was subsequently given the name El Draque; a main ingredient was a form of crude rum called aquardient. In 1940, the Cuban playwright and poet Federico Villoch proclaimed, 'When we replace aquardiente with rum, el Draque now becomes the Mojito'. Many sugar cane cocktails similar to el Draque, (rum, sugar cane and limes) can still found in a London bar, which is aptly named 'The Sugar Cane' a London bar in Clapham Junction, about 5 miles from the Deptford Tudor Shipbuilding Yard,( by the Thames), built in 1513 by Henry VIII to construct ships for his Royal Navy.