The American government has a document with the exact rules on how to mix cocktails - here are the 13 best recipes

Creative cocktails have become the hallmark of bartenders around the world. After all, there's no "right" way to mix up a drink, right?

Apparently, there is - and the U.S. government seems to have signed off on it.

Craig Stoltz, a cocktail enthusiast and former Washington Post editor, posted a curious engineering diagram on Liquor.com.

The diagram, created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service in 1974, spells out exactly how to create some of the most common cocktails around.

A closer look at who signed off on the document - which is preserved in the National Archives - reveals that it is more of a prank than actual law, with signatures like "I. Mixum" and "I. P. Freely." However, that doesn't mean that the chart doesn't contain some useful advice.

Here are 13 of the cocktail construction recipes on the chart that any amateur mixologist should have under their belt, from the martini to the Zombie.