Day 22: "Tom Collins"

This next drink is very famous: the Tom Collins. This drink actually has a very interesting history. In the late 1800s, a hoax began to grow nationally in the U.S. A person would ask another, “Where is Tom Collins?” When the listener would react that they did not know, the initiator of the conversation would assert that this “Tom Collins” was saying bad things about the listener, and then the listener would go out to find Tom Collins and confront him, but would never find him because he didn’t exist! After newspapers began to perpetuate the hoax by reporting sightings of Tom, a new drink was soon named after him.

Here’s the famous recipe (taken from DrinksMixer.com):

2 oz gin (Seagram’s Extra Dry Gin)
1 oz lemon juice (Tantillo Sicilian Lemon Juice)
1 tsp superfine sugar
3 oz club soda (Canada Dry Club Soda)
1 maraschino cherry
1 slice orange

In a shaker half-filled with ice cubes, combine the gin, lemon juice, and sugar. Shake well. Strain into a Collins glass almost filled with ice cubes. Add the club soda. Stir and garnish with the cherry and the orange slice.

The Collins glass, named after this drink, is the perfect glass for this cocktail. It is also garnished traditionally with a cherry and an orange slice.

Personal tasting notes: After the overwhelming club soda taste of the Mojito, I was really nervous to try this drink. I was actually pleasantly surprised, and the ingredients mixed together nicely. I think because the gin flavor was so strong that I might need a couple drinks in me first before I take this one, but this is something I think I’ll try again in the future.