Londoners once loved an ale whose key ingredient was a rooster.
ON FEBRUARY 2, 1663, AFTER a long day of business meetings, the celebrated diarist Samuel Pepys and his colleague and friend John Creed “turned into a house and drank a cup of Cock ale.” If the scenario of two coworkers sharing a drink at the end of the day seems familiar, the beverage Pepys and Creed enjoyed does not. The key ingredient in cock ale, which was popular in 17th- and 18th-century England, was a rooster.
- Atlas Obscura
