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I was taught that the only "strong" rule about cocktails was that it had 3+ ingredients. Every other rule (like sweet + bitter) has notable exceptions, ie. drinks like the cosmo substitute a citrus for the bitters.

Plus, the whole sweet cocktail thing was a more modern invention of the prohibition era to cover up the taste of harsh spirits. Plenty of older cocktails around.

EDIT: It kinda feels like the rule about email address parsing. The only good rule is that it has an @ symbol.