A list of the most famous cocktails in the world, the absolutely cool ones, that you cannot fail to ask if you are in a bar and want to be trendy.

Number one is Black Russian, vodka and coffee liqueur. It also has the White Russian variant, with the addition of fresh cream. It was invented in 1949 by the Belgian barman Gustave Topsè, in honor of the American ambassador. Its name derives from the origin of vodka and the color of the coffee. It can also be drunk after a meal and during happy hours. Not bad when paired with a slice of chocolate cake.

What are the most famous cocktails in the world, the absolutely cool ones, that you cannot fail to ask if you are in a bar and want to be trendy?

Who does not know and has never tried the Bloody Mary? Red in color because the main ingredient is tomato. It is dedicated to Mary I Tudor, known as Bloody Mary, because she had at least 300 religious opponents executed. Someone claims that the name derives instead from the actress Mary Pickford. It was invented by Ferdinando Petiot, a barman who in 1920 worked for Harry’s New York Bar in Paris. The original idea was to create a drink that cheered up the patrons after an evening of partying. The recipe: vodka, tomato juice, hot spices, herbs, salt, pepper and lemon juice.

The Cosmopolitan is a symbol of the New York style. It partly owes its hunger to ‘Sex and the city’. The recipe is said to have been invented by a bartender at ‘The Strand’ restaurant in South Beach, but the origins are uncertain. Some say it was created in the 1950s after a cranberry juice company held a contest featuring blueberries. To make a Cosmopolitan as it should be, you should use vodka citron, triple sec, fresh lemon juice, American cranberry juice.

The Daiquiri was much loved by Ernest Hemingway. The recipe calls for only three ingredients: white rum, fresh lime juice, and sugar. The legend tells of a young American sailor who, having arrived precisely in Daiquiri, a small village near Santiago de Cuba and today called Playa Daiquiri, requested in a shack not smooth rum, but rum diluted with lemon juice and sugar.

For others, the birth of this cocktail is to be placed in 1905, when some American engineers who worked in a mine invented it, giving it the name of the Cuban beach of Daiquiri.

Margarita is a symbolic cocktail of Mexico thanks to tequila, the main ingredient. Tequila is then mixed with triple sec, lime or lemon juice. It is a typical aperitif drink and it seems that it was created by an American barman for Marjorie King, an actress of the early twentieth century who could only drink tequila.

The Martini cocktail or Dry Martini cannot be missing in this review. Only two ingredients to create it: dry vermouth and gin.

On the other hand, there are many stories that revolve around: was it an Italian bartender called Martini who created it? He would have prepared it for the first time for Rockefeller in New York in 1912. Or perhaps it is an evolution of the Martinez, cocktail by Jerry Thomas, dated 1850? It is the official cocktail of the International Bartenders Association (Iba).

Mojito means mint. The pirate Sir Francis Drake seems to have tried a similar version even in the 16th century. Officially, the name derives from the barmen of the Bodeguita del Medio, historic Havana bar restaurant: Attilio De La Fuente or Angel Martinez. Hemingway would have exported it out of Cuba. The name may be a distortion of the Spanish mojadito, meaning moist, or derive from mojo, a condiment for marinating a typical Cuban recipe.

Negroni was born in Italy. In the recipe there are gin, bitter and red vermouth. It is linked to Florence and to Count Camillo Negroni, who used to go to Caffè Casoni in the 1920s. Tired of the usual drink, the Americano, he  asked the bartender (Angelo Tesauro or Fosco Scarselli) to put gin instead of seltzer. Among the variants is the Wrong Negroni.

Old-Fashioned is made with bourbon or rye whiskey, angostura bitter, sugar cube and a splash of soda. It is supposed to be born in a New York luxury hotel, the Waldorf-Astoria, where Colonel James Pepper would teach the bartender the recipe they had created for him in another bar, the Pendennis Club in Louisville. However, it was the New York bar that made it famous in America and around the world.

We close this review with Sex on the beach which, as the name implies, is perfect to sip on the beach and in any case in summer. It is made of vodka, which became famous in the United States in the 1980s.

It could be an evolution of Peach on the Beach, made with peach vodka, orange juice and cranberry, created for a competition of the National Distribution, a liquor distribution company. It has supposedly been invented by Ted Pizio, at the time a barman at Confettis. Today Sex on the beach is made with peach vodka or peach liqueur, fresh orange juice, American cranberry juice.