bottled cocktails are ready-to-drink alcoholic beverages that have been packaged for later consumption, originally in bottles, and later also in cans. Since at least the late eighteenth century, punches have been bottled for later enjoyment. See punch. The 1827 book Oxford Night Caps collects several recipes that were well known at the university, including clarified milk punches to be bottled for later use; indeed, the status of bottles Milk Punch was such in Britain that in the 1840s one Mr. Hudson of Chichester and London was appointed manufacturer of Milk Punch to the queen. See Milk Punch and mixography. The Cock-Tail itself, having nothing perishable in its makeup, proved particularly amenable to bottling, and bottled Cock-Tail was sold by most high-end bars in the United States; Jerry Thomas’s 1862 cocktail manual lists several large-gauge recipes for bottling, most notably “Recipe no. 106, Bottle Cocktail.” See Cock-Tail and Thomas, Jeremiah P. “Jerry”.
It is not until the 1890s, however, that the modern era of commercially available, premixed and pre-diluted cocktails gets going. In 1892 the Heublein Hotel of Hartford, Connecticut, took advantage of advances in packaging technology to launch its Club Cocktail line of bottled cocktails; as the G. F. Heublein Co., they enjoyed large sales nationwide that lasted through the 1980s (and went on to spearhead the vodka revolution in America after their purchase of the Smirnoff brand). See Smirnoff. Liquor companies have sought to capitalize on their well-known brands by marketing bottled versions of popular drinks, most notably the Sazerac Cocktail in the United States and Campari Soda in Italy, launched in its signature conical bottle in 1932. See Campari and Sazerac Cocktail.
The use of soda cans starting in the 1930s increased the availability and variety of ready-to-drink highballs, most especially canned Bourbon and Cola and canned Gin and Tonic. See Gin and Tonic and highball. Later non-spirits trends, such as the wine cooler fad of the 1980s or the flavored-malt-liquor blip of the 1990s are debatable as proper bottled cocktails, but they certainly helped to keep ready-to-drink concoctions in front of consumers. A remaining technical hurdle is the inclusion of citrus juice in these beverages, as the fruit solids will separate and oxidize. Refined citric acid is used as a more stable substitute, but without achieving the citrus flavor of a freshly made drink. The twenty-first-century cocktail renaissance has brought an even wider variety of premixed cocktails to the market, particularly once the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020–2021 drove bars to a takeout-only model. See
“Milk Punch Royal” (advertisement). Liverpool Standard, October 9, 1840, 1.
Oxford Night Caps. Oxford: 1827.
House of Heublein: An American Institution. Hartford, CT: G. F. Heublein & Bro., n.d. [ca. 1960].
Thomas, Jerry. How to Mix Drinks. New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1862.
By: David Moo