The way the whisky sour is mentioned in this 1870 newspaper shows that its popularity is such that it needs no explanation. Waukesha Plain Dealer, Tuesday 4th January 1870. 'Amen' says the Methodist, as he ordered another whisky sour.' 'Then may God have mercy on your soul,' says I, taking a drink out of me cousin's glass. The oldest known mention of a Whiskey Sour comes eight years later in a God-fearing Wisconsin, USA, newspaper, the Waukesha Plain Dealer. The first known written recipe for a Sour appears six years later in Jerry Thomas' 1862 The Bartender's Guide which has recipes for a Brandy Sour, a Gin Sour and a Santa Cruz (rum sour). The first record of a Sour appears in 1856, alongside that for a Fix, as part of the hand-written list of the 107 mixed drinks then offered at in the Mart Ackermann's Saloon in Toronto, Canada. Sailors brought Punches and Grogs ashore and Punch Houses were first established in London in the 1600s. To help combat scurvy and malnutrition, the sailors often mixed their rum rations with lime juice to make a Daiquiri-like mixture known as Grog, which in turn led to British sailors being nicknamed 'limeys', and the phrase, 'Too many and you'll be 'groggy' in the morning.'. Rum was readily available around the Caribbean, and unlike beer, didn't go off during long voyages, so rum became the official libation of the British Navy.

The British Navy is credited for popularising, if not inventing the sour. Punch is the earliest form of cocktail and due to the similarity in ingredients, many site the punch as being the sours predecessor - and by extension, also of Collinses, Fixes, Daisies, Coolers and Cobblers - what drinks historian David Wondrich calls 'The Children of Punch' or 'Lesser Punches'. The combination of base spirit, water, sugar and citrus mean that a sour is basically a scaled-down punch.

Whiskey sour glass