Serving cocktails to your guests prior to the meal is not only a great way to keep guests occupied while you finish preparing the food, but also serve as an appetite stimulant, or an aperitif.

A cocktail is a mixed drink containing two or more ingredients. Originally a mixture of distilled spirits, sugar, water, and bitters,^[1] the word has gradually come to mean almost any mixed drink containing alcohol.^[2]

A cocktail today usually contains one or more types of liquor and one or more mixers, such as bitters, fruit juice, fruit, soda, ice, sugar, honey, milk, cream, or herbs.