The Tom Collins is named after a practical joke. In 1874, a prank swept through New York City bars called the Great Tom Collins Hoax, and the cocktail took the name of the fictional character at its center. It is one of the few American cocktails whose origin is a verifiable piece of 19th-century comedy.
The drink itself is much older than the prank. The joke simply gave a good drink a name that stuck.
New York, 1874
In the summer of 1874, a particular joke was circulating in New York bars. The setup was that a man would approach a friend and ask, “Have you seen Tom Collins?” When the friend said no, the man would insist Tom Collins had been in a nearby bar speaking badly of the friend, making specific insulting claims about the friend’s character. The friend, outraged, would then rush to the bar to confront Tom Collins, only to find no one there. Repeat with the next bar, on and on across the city.
The joke was a kind of wild-goose chase carried out by the indignation of the victim. The Great Tom Collins Hoax was widespread enough that it was covered in newspapers across the United States. It spawned comic songs, vaudeville routines, and at least one widely printed illustration. It is one of the best-documented American urban jokes of the 19th century.
Bartenders in New York, seeing customers come in asking for Tom Collins, started making a drink they could hand over when the question was asked. The drink they made was a gin punch, variations of which had been around for decades, served tall with ice, soda water, lemon, and sugar. When a customer asked for Tom Collins, the bartender handed them this drink. The name stuck.
Before the joke: the John Collins
The drink itself predates the prank by several decades. The John Collins is attested in British drinking guides from the 1830s and 1840s. It was a gin punch served tall with lemon, sugar, and soda water, and it appeared in the earliest cocktail books. The most common story is that it was named after John Collins, a waiter at Limmer’s Hotel in London in the early 1800s, who served the drink.
Between the 1830s and the 1874 hoax, the John Collins evolved in America, changing names in the process. Some bars called it a Gin Punch. Some called it a Limmer’s Punch. Some called it a John Collins, following the British original. The 1874 Tom Collins hoax gave American bartenders a new and popular name for what was already their house recipe for this style of drink.
By the 1880s, the name Tom Collins had largely displaced John Collins in American bars. The John Collins name was retained for whiskey-based versions of the drink, which confusingly reversed the gin-whiskey convention in the UK for a period. By the 20th century, the distinction had settled: the Tom Collins was a gin drink, and the John Collins was a whiskey drink.
What the drink actually is
The Tom Collins is a member of the highball family, closely related to the Gin Fizz. A highball is a spirit topped with a non-alcoholic mixer over ice. A fizz is a shaken spirit-citrus-sugar mixture topped with soda. A collins is a fizz served in a taller glass, with more ice and more soda water, making the drink longer and more sessionable.
The collins category is named for the drink, which is to say the Tom Collins was popular enough that it gave its name to a category and a glass. The “Collins glass” is a tall, narrow glass between 10 and 14 ounces, designed to hold a lot of ice and a lot of mixer.
The drink’s structure is: a spirit base, a citrus, a sweetener, and soda to top. The spirit has to be interesting enough to come through the dilution. The citrus has to be fresh. The soda has to be well-carbonated.
Making one well
Use a gin with character. A Tom Collins with neutral gin is a glass of lemon soda with a faint gin note. Gallon House Gin’s juniper-led profile comes through clearly over the soda dilution. The juniper, rose, coriander, and citrus in the gin all pair with lemon and soda.
Use fresh lemon. Bottled lemon juice in a drink that is mostly lemon is particularly unforgiving. Fresh lemon is bright and complex; bottled is flat and slightly sulfurous.
Use simple syrup, not granulated sugar. Granulated sugar does not dissolve properly in cold liquid and leaves the drink grainy and undersweet.
The soda matters. Freshly opened soda water, well-carbonated, gives the drink its character. Flat soda produces a flat drink. Seltzer works. Club soda works. Mineral sparkling water works. Do not use tonic water, which has quinine and sugar and makes a different drink.
Build the drink in the glass, not in a shaker. Shake the gin, lemon, and syrup briefly with ice to chill and mix, then strain into a Collins glass over fresh ice. Top with soda water. Stir gently, once. Garnish with a lemon wheel and a cherry.
Variations worth knowing
The John Collins uses whiskey instead of gin. Originally Scotch, later American whiskey. The drink is rounder and less bright.
The Vodka Collins is the modern American variant. See Vodka Collins for our house version with Silverton Vodka.
The Mojito Collins, or Cuban Collins, adds mint leaves muddled with the lemon before shaking. It is bright and herbaceous.
The Raspberry Collins muddles fresh raspberries before shaking, pinking the drink and adding fruit depth.
The Sloe Gin Collins uses sloe gin instead of London Dry. The drink is sweeter, rosier, and more fruit-forward.
The recipe
2 oz Gallon House Gin 1 oz fresh lemon juice ½ oz simple syrup Soda water, to top
Shake the gin, lemon juice, and simple syrup briefly with ice. Strain into a Collins glass over fresh ice. Top with soda water. Stir gently. Garnish with a lemon wheel and a cherry.
A drink worth ordering
The Tom Collins is one of those rare cocktails whose correct preparation is also the easiest preparation. There is no trick to it, no difficult technique, no obscure ingredient. Good gin, fresh lemon, simple syrup, cold soda. The drink’s success is the sum of its parts, not a hidden element. It is a practical joke’s cocktail, named for no one in particular, and it is one of the best drinks ever served in summer. The long glass and the soda make it feel light, which is the trap. You can drink a Tom Collins quickly, which you will discover on the fourth one when you cannot remember why you started telling this particular story.
My grandma Jo was a gin-and-bubbles person for most of her life, and a Tom Collins was exactly her kind of drink. Long glass, cold soda, lemon in the ice. She would have approved of our Gallon House Gin in it, and she would have approved of drinking one on a porch as the light went down.
Sources
- The Great Tom Collins Hoax, as documented in American newspapers of 1874.
- David Wondrich, Imbibe! (Perigee, 2007), on the drink’s pre-hoax history and the John Collins lineage.
- Jerry Thomas, The Bar-Tender’s Guide (Dick & Fitzgerald, 1862 and 1887), for early versions of gin punch.
- Dale DeGroff, The Craft of the Cocktail (Clarkson Potter, 2002), on Collins technique.
- Difford’s Guide entry on the Tom Collins.
About the author
Adam Messick is the founder of Abiqua Spirit Distillery in Silverton, Oregon, with ten years in the craft spirits industry. With help from family and friends, he handles the day-to-day work of blending, bottling, and labeling every release of Silverton Vodka, Gallon House Gin, and Üla Orange Liqueur. Silverton Vodka received the American Distilling Institute’s Gold Medal in 2019. Silverton Vodka, Gallon House Gin, and Üla Orange Liqueur have each won Silver at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.
Abiqua Spirit Distillery is a small-batch spirits company producing finely crafted potato vodka, gin, and orange liqueur from Silverton, Oregon. Contact: info@abiquaspiritdistillery.com or (503) 837-9869.