Ale to the selling of beer labeled "strong beer" that had actually been diluted with small beer. In medieval times, ale may have been safer to drink than most water (the germ theory of disease was unheard of, and the sterilizing properties of boiling unknown); however, there is no period evidence that people were aware of this nor that they chose to drink ale for this reason. The alcohol, hops, and some ingredients in gruit used to preserve some ales may have contributed to their lower load of pathogens, when compared to water. However, ale was largely safer due to the
Cock ale Francis Grose's "Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue" (1785), which also calls it provocative. Writing in 1929, William Henry Nugent claimed that Cock ale was a concoction of bread and ale fed to fighting birds. Several authors have theorised that "Cock ale" may have mutated into "cocktail", an American word first used in 1806 whose origin is now lost. Cock ale Cock ale, popular in 17th and 18th-century England, was an ale whose recipe consisted of normal ale brewed inside a container, to which was later added a bag stuffed with a parboiled, skinned and gutted cock, and various fruits