The Tom, and John, Collins Story

The original name for the Tom Collins was the John Collins.  The John Collins was named after the headwaiter at Limmer’s Hotel, a London hotspot in the early 19th century.  The drink was his personal specialty.  We don’t exactly know what Headwaiter John’s original recipe was, just that it was a type of gin punch -  specifically a variant the Garrick Club Punch, the eponymous cocktail of another London Establishment -  and that he appeared to have used Old Tom Gin (David Wondrich chronicles all this in extensive annotated detail across sections in two of his seminal works - Punch and Imbibe!). 

 

Limmer’s Hotel packed some distinguished clientele who people tended to listen to - they were what we might call “influencers” today.   Though word of mouth they drove the John Collins to widespread popularity.  By name anyway, the original recipe surely was corrupted somewhat.   By the 1870s, it had made it to the new world and was a hit in America.  

 

How did it become the Tom Collins?  For one, while it was initially it was made in the states with a base of genever aka Dutch gin, which was a more common back bar fixture at the time, old tom gin was on the rise.   So that may have influenced imbibers to corrupt the name as they passed it on in a game of tipsy telephone.  Another contributor to the switch appears to have come in the form of a popular barroom gag of 1874 barroom, which was surprisingly well documented by the media.   It went something like this: a customer would approach a fellow patron and tell them that they heard a man by the name of “Tom Collins” at the bar down the street talking trash at their expense.  Enraged, the wounded patron would charge off to confront Mr. Collins, only to find a bar full of participators in on the joke who would tell him that he had left, continuing to spill insults, and went to another location.  And on and on it went.   

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I guess this stunt and cocktail rising to prominence at the same time was enough to get the name to stick. Regardless, And once it did, the mold was set forever.  It’s a bit odd (to me anyway) that a drink regarded as an emblem of classic cocktail integrity was derived from a frat boy joke of it’s day.   But obviously history doesn’t care about my feelings. 

 

After prohibition when London Dry style gin conquered all it supplanted old tom gin as prevailing base of the Tom Collins, and it remains so to this day.  

 

As for the John Collins, it was relegated to the version of the drink made with genever.  However, after prohibition genever all but disappeared in United States and eventually, since genever unable to defend itself, a collins made with bourbon assumed the “John” moniker.   

 

Adding to confusion, a bourbon collins was also sometimes called a Colonel Collins, which is how I’ve always known it because it was frequent fixture of my parents and grandparents social hour routines.  And, seeing as those were is the inspiration for this site, it seems wrong to call it otherwise here.  Plus, genever has seen a resurgence in recent years and I think it has earned the right to reclaim it's title.  So, in the recipes above you'll see I've kept the genever version under John, and bourbon under Colonel.