Cosmopolitan Cocktail

Cosmopolitan Cocktail Story

The Cosmopolitan is an iconic drink with a long history. Did Odeon’s Toby Cecchini adapt it from a recipe he encountered by way of a co-worker from San Francisco in the late 1980s? Was it invented in New York’s Rainbow Room by Cocktail King Dale Degroff and served to Madonna in the early ‘90s? While the earliest mention of a Cosmopolitan appears with raspberry syrup instead of cranberry juice in Charles Christopher Mueller’s 1934 cocktail handbook Pioneers of Mixing at Elite Bars 1903-1933, our favorite story is of Cheryl Cook, head bartender at the Strand in Miami, whose recipe closely matches that of the modern Cosmo. Cook incorporated Absolut Citron, introduced to the US in the ‘80s, and mixed it up with Triple Sec, Rose’s lime juice, and cranberry, then poured it into a Martini glass for a vibrant drink that looked classy but tasted flirty. Regardless of the origin story, Cook is indirectly responsible for the Cosmo's explosive mainstream appearance. According to Cook herself, one of her loyal clients was Sex and the City costume designer Patricia Field, who likely introduced the drink to Carrie et al.