The Old Fashioned is a cocktail, possibly the first drink to be called a cocktail. It is traditionally served in a short, round, 8-12 ounce tumbler-like glass, called an Old-Fashioned glass, named after the drink. The Old Fashioned is one of six basic drinks listed in David A.
Embury's classic The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks. The first documented definition of the word "cocktail" was in response to a reader's letter asking to define the word in the May 6, 1806 issue of The Balance and Columbia Repository in Hudson, New York. In the May 13, 1806 issue, the paper's editor wrote that it was a potent concoction of spirits, bitters, water, and sugar, a kind of bittered sling.