The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails Definition of The Collins

The Collins family of drinks—spirits, lemon juice, sugar, ice, and sparkling water, in a large tall glass—has its origin in the notoriously rowdy and aristocratic Prince of Wales Coffee House and Limmer’s Hotel, at the corner of Conduit and George streets in London. Founded in 1784 or thereabouts by Stephen Limmer (1748–1818), the hotel lasted in one form or another until 1904. From 1807, if not before, through the 1830s, the head waiter and bar manager was John Collin (1769–1843), “than whom a more respectable, kind-hearted creature never existed,” as one patron recalled. One of Collin’s—or Collins’s, as history remembered his name—specialties was his Gin Punch, attested to as early as 1834. But Gin Punch was fashionable—Byron had favored it, and that was more than enough recommendation for London’s beau monde—and any popular watering hole had to serve it.

What set the Limmer’s version apart wasn’t the recipe so much as the surroundings: its “coffee room,” as the bar was known, was small, low-ceilinged, and dark, with sand on the bare floor (a patron had shoveled hot coals on the carpet, causing it to burn) and a clock that was stopped (the same patron, Lord Waterford, had shot it). But it was packed: anyone who could get past the one-legged doorman, who only let in aristocrats and sportsmen, would end up perched on a table or even the mantelpiece, a tankard of punch in hand and surrounded by gamblers hard at work. It was heady and memorable, and John Collin was the man who issued the tankards. Indeed, he was celebrated in verse as such, by the sons of Richard Brinsley Sheridan—Limmer’s regulars both.

At some point the still water that had been standard in the punch was replaced by soda water. Judging from what scraps of information are available, that was in the 1830s, after the Garrick Club Punch showed the way. See Garrick Club Punch. It’s also possible that, at least at one point, the punch was sweetened with capillaire (French maidenhair-fern syrup). But the drink went underground for twenty years after Collin’s death, first reappearing in 1864 at the famous Dolly’s Tavern in Montreal, popular among young officers, and at the North Australian Club in Ipswich, outside of Brisbane (both sightings were written up in 1865). In that period, it reached its classical form, described above, with Old Tom gin as its driving spirit and plain sugar as its only sweetener.

genever. Before long, that led to a split: the genever version took the name John Collins, while the Old Tom version became, logically, the Tom Collins. See Old Tom gin. There were also brandy and whisky and rum Collinses, the last of which was heavily promoted in the 1930s by the Jamaican rum industry.

With the decline in genever as a part of American drinking culture, by the end of the 1940s the American whisky Collins took over the “John Collins” name, while the decline in Old Tom meant that the Tom Collins was now made with dry gin. By the 1970s, the Collins family was as described by Stan Jones: “There are a number of other names attached to the Collins depending on which liquor is used: Colonel Collins (Bourbon), Mike Collins (Irish whiskey), Sandy Collins (Scotch whisky), Pedro Collins (rum), Pierre Collins (brandy) and Jack Collins (applejack), etc.” Few of these names, or the drinks they describe, are still in wide use, although the gin Collins still flourishes.

Recipe (original John Collins; for other versions, substitute the appropriate spirit): In a large, tall glass, stir 5 ml sugar in 22 ml lemon juice. Add 60 ml Old Tom gin, fill with ice, and add 90–120 ml chilled soda water. Stir lightly; add straw and lemon wheel.

The Collins

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