In recent years there has been a particular boom in cocktails in Greece, both in the major urban cities and in smaller destinations in the provinces and islands.

Bartenders are becoming increasingly specialized, with the Athens cocktail scene, in particular, being one of the best in the world. In fact, the best cocktail among the top 36 identified by the internationally renowned Time Out magazine for 2019 was a Greek one.

There are several versions of the word cocktail, with one claiming to be inspired by the Mississippi River Gambling era, with the winners wearing a red cock feather and creating a drink mix from all the drinks that were in the bar, and mixing it with a spoon that looked like a rooster's tail.

Another story says that a restaurant cooked chickens and after dinner offered its customers drinks decorated with feathers made from their tails, with the French shouting "vive la cock tail".

The prevailing version, however, is that the word cocktail comes from the French word coquetel, the name of a blend of wines that General Lafayette brought to America when he arrived in Philadelphia in 1777.

So, as most would argue, the emphasis and attention given to cocktails is a new global "trend", something that is, at least historically, outdated.

For example, the ancient Egyptians or Romans mixed alcohol with spices to create medicinal elixirs, while the Aztecs in Mexico used alcohol in sacrificial ceremonies.

In the Middle Ages, there were many simple liquors used by monks to preserve medicinal herbs, and they did not appear in their most modern form until the 1800s.

The cocktail of the ancient Greeks and the abduction of Persephone

By contrast, the ancient Greeks seem to have been even more "advanced" when it came to cocktails, enjoying Kykeonas, a drink made from barley, water and various aromatic plants.

Kykeonas refers to mythology and more specifically to the story with the abduction of Persephone, the daughter of the goddess of agriculture, Demeter, and Zeus. Her beauty enchanted Pluto, the god of Hades, who, as soon as he saw her, fell in love with her and decided to steal her.

According to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, young Persephone was in the Nyssian field with Athena, Artemis, and the Oceanids, picking flowers, when she left them in search of the most beautiful flower. Then Pluto seized the opportunity, and as Persephone stooped to pick up a narcissus, the earth opened in the middle and a chariot appeared before her, led by Pluto, who seized the beautiful young woman.

Dimitra's grief was great, for she searched day and night in vain for her daughter. During the search for Persephone, Demeter stayed in Eleusis, whose inhabitants offered the goddess of agriculture a Kykeonas to drink. According to Homer, Dimitra refused the red wine offered to her, while she gladly accepted the Kykeonas - a drink, made of barley, water and mint.

As heartbroken as Dimitra was, her grief affected the crops, which began to wither and no fruit could grow. Eleusis was threatened with famine and to prevent this, Zeus ordered Hermes to fetch Persephone from Hades.

The daughter of Demeter thus lived six months with her mother (duration spring-summer) and six months with Pluto in the underworld(autumn-winter).

In this way, the land of Eleusis bore fruit again and so the "Eleusinian Mysteries" were established, in honor of the goddess Demeter and Persephone.

Kykeonas, the drink the mystics drank during the Eleusinian Mysteries

One of the most sacred and revered ceremonies of all the celebrations of ancient Greece, during which the mystics drank Kykeonas at the Mysteries to break the sacred abstinence from food and drink - a "cocktail" especially loved by the ancient Greek peasants, while the aristocrats avoided it, as it was known as a peasant drink.

Kykeonas was thus mainly made from coarsely ground barley, water and various herbs (mainly mint), with references to some herbs such as caraway.

This drink is also mentioned in Homeric texts, for example in the Iliad, where it is described as a drink consisting of water, barley, herbs and grated goat's cheese, while in Homer's Odyssey, Kirki added a little honey to offer it to Odysseus and his men, turning them into pigs.

Among the properties of Kykeonas are its digestive properties, Hermes recommending it in Aristophanes' "Peace" to the hero who has eaten too many nuts and dried fruit.

What has long puzzled researchers, however, is how countless people at the end of some two millennia in the Eleusinian Mysteries reached the same ecstasy with different visions while drinking only Kykeonas. It is, therefore, speculated that the intense experiences of the participants were due to the psychoactive properties of the parasitic fungus Erysivis, which contaminated the barley used to make Kykeonas.