{"id":57066,"date":"2017-05-17T05:00:42","date_gmt":"2017-05-17T09:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uncommongoods.com\/?p=57066"},"modified":"2017-05-12T14:45:12","modified_gmt":"2017-05-12T18:45:12","slug":"uncommon-knowledge-why-do-we-drink-on-the-rocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/2017\/uncommon-knowledge-why-do-we-drink-on-the-rocks\/","title":{"rendered":"Uncommon Knowledge: Why Do We Drink \u201cOn the Rocks\u201d?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/product\/whiskey-stones-gift-set\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-57150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Whiskey-Stones-and-Gift-Set.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" height=\"650\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Despite the recent rise of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/arts-culture\/are-we-re-entering-golden-age-american-bartending-180954474\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">American craft cocktail movement<\/a>, with its splashes, twists, and many muddled herbs, deep-cut bartending jargon still gives even the most dedicated drinkers pause. Did you know, for instance, that you can sip on a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thekitchn.com\/how-to-make-a-fruit-shrub-syrup-174072\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">shrub<\/a> or request a <a href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/5918683\/the-49-bits-of-booze-jargon-every-drinker-needs-to-know\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">topless<\/a> margarita? And what of the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bartending_terminology#Straight\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">highly complex difference<\/a> between the words \u201cstraight,\u201d \u201cstraight up,\u201d and \u201cneat\u201d? It can be enough to make your head spin, drink or no drink.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn the rocks,\u201d meanwhile, rings a crystal-clear bell for most of us\u2014<em>ice, please<\/em>, and usually scotch\u2014but where on earth did it come from? Legend has it that the phrase derives from a Scottish tradition of cooling one\u2019s whiskey with rocks retrieved from a riverbed, though the truth is likely a bit more boring. With the first use of the phrase <a href=\"http:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/index.php?term=rocks&amp;allowed_in_frame=0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">dated<\/a> to the mid-1940s, when the ice cube tray as we know it was still a relatively new invention, the \u201crocks\u201d in \u201con the rocks\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/mentalfloss.com\/article\/63889\/7-bartending-terms-and-what-they-actually-mean\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">most likely refer to<\/a> ice cubes chipped from a larger block, which would appear jagged, like little stones. Need a visual? Think of that itty-bitty gravel you put in a fishbowl\u2014and no, for once, we don\u2019t mean <a href=\"http:\/\/everycollegegirl.com\/how-to-make-the-perfect-summer-fish-bowl-drink\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the drink<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/product\/whiskey-stones-gift-set?source=blog_uk_051717\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Whiskey Stones &amp; Gift Set<\/a> | $20\u2013$58<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite the recent rise of the American craft cocktail movement, with its splashes, twists, and many muddled herbs, deep-cut&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":259,"featured_media":57150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1208],"tags":[2326,813,934],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57066"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/259"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57066"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57152,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57066\/revisions\/57152"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}