Simply sherry, sugar, and citrus, shaken, poured over crushed ice, and slurped through a straw, the cobbler is thought to have originated sometime in the 1820s or early 1830s. Its great launch into international renown came courtesy of Charles Dickens and his The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. In a scene now well-known among cocktail geeks, Chuzzlewit’s reaction to the drink sums it up perfectly: “Martin took the glass, with an astonished look; applied his lips to the reed; and cast up his eyes once in ecstasy. He paused no more until the goblet was drained to the last drop… ‘This wonderful invention, Sir,’ said Mark, tenderly patting the empty glass, ‘is called a cobbler. Sherry cobbler when you name it long.’”
Reprinted with permission from Session Cocktails: Low-Alcohol Drinks for Any Occasion by Drew Lazor and the Editors of PUNCH, copyright © 2018. Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House.