Drake fake

While the provenance of certain cocktails is dubious at best, others are out-and-out fakes. One such is the cocktail, El Draque. According to claims, not only was this drink created in “honour” of pirate/privateer and favourite of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth 1, Sir Francis Drake (1540-1596), it was done so while he was still alive. Furthermore, according to those claims, it was originated as Drake routinely plundered Spanish ships from the Gulf of Mexico to the Caribbean Sea. That would make it the world’s first cocktail (and, according to the claims, the forerunner of the famed Mojito, a similar fresh-lime and rum-based cocktail). Certainly, the Spanish referred to Drake as El Draque, a derogatory term in Old Spanish meaning “The Dragon”. But the notion that Drake ordered his men to come up with a cure for scurvy (chronic Vitamin C deficiency; the sailors’ plague at the time) in or around Havana, Cuba, some 440 years ago, is utterly ludicrous, even though lemons and limes were known to help prevent the illness. Where and when this story originated is unknown, but plainly its purpose has been to add to the mythology of tall stories which surround the short drinks.