Tom Collins
Fresh, tart, tall and refreshing. With lots of gin.
This drink pops up around 1860, although it is first mentioned in the 1876 edition of The Bon Vivant’s Companion by Jerry Thomas, we can be assured that as it is an English drink, and this is an American book, the cocktail would had to have been around for a while first. It is also listed in Jerry Thomas’s book as being a variation on a whiskey Collins. However, the drink is almost certainly named after Old Tom Gin, a sweetened style popular in the mid 19th England. The drink itself is identical to a gin fizz, except for numerous rules of thumb about one having ice and the other not, one being stirred and the other shaken. The only real difference between these two drinks is that the Gin Fizz began its life in America and the Tom Collins in England. The Gin Fizz uses dry gin, and the Tom Collins a sweetened style. However, this would have been balanced out in the addition of less sugar, so the two drinks probably tasted identical. Both drinks are shaken with ice and poured straight up into a small highball or tumbler. They are then charged with soda water and drunk quickly, while they are energetic. Jerry Thomas lists his Gin Fizz as a stirred drink with powdered sugar, and topped with Apollinaris or seltzer water, whereas the Tom Collins called for sugar syrup and soda water. Most of Jerry Thomas’ fizzes are stirred with a small lump of ice, and I can’t help feeling that this represents the American style rather than a true difference in the cocktail itself. As for the Tom Collins, it gets its name from two places, a bartender named John Thomas, who was known to some degree for a fabulous gin punch or sling that he made, and the Old Tom brand of gin. It is quite possible that the drink began its life as Collin’s punch or sling, and slowly became a Collins with Old Tom, then the Tom Collins we know today. The other aspect of the drink worth mentioning is that it is primarily a Gin Sour with soda water added. Soda water was first created in 1767, but it wasn’t until 1800 that its use outside of medicine began. By the mid 1800’s, when the Tom Collins begins to appear, soda or carbonated water would have been quite common, and a Gin Sour topped with soda and drunk quickly, while energetic, would have been quite a sensation.
