Breakdown of Wir haben den Cocktail mit einer Olive garniert.
ein
a, an (eine)
haben
to have
wir
we
mit
with
Questions & Answers about Wir haben den Cocktail mit einer Olive garniert.
Why is the past participle garniert and not gegarniert?
Verbs ending in -ieren (which are mostly loanwords) do not take the ge- prefix when forming the past participle. They simply add a -t to the verb stem.
How could I use the particle schlechthin in this sentence to say we garnished 'the ultimate cocktail'?
You would place the particle directly after the noun it elevates. The sentence would become Wir haben den Cocktail schlechthin mit einer Olive garniert.
Why is it einer Olive instead of eine Olive?
The preposition mit always forces the following noun phrase into the dative case. Because Olive is a feminine noun, its indefinite article takes the feminine dative ending, becoming einer.
Is there a rule for knowing the gender of English loanwords like Cocktail?
While loanwords can sometimes be unpredictable, alcoholic mixed drinks adopted from English are generally masculine in German. This gives us der Cocktail, which changes to den Cocktail here because it acts as the direct object in the accusative case.