Ingredients
- 60mL gin
- 20mL lemon juice
- 15mL sugar syrup
- Soda water, to top
- Lemon wedge, to garnish
- Maraschino cherry, to garnish
- Ice
Method
- Add gin, lemon juice and sugar syrup to an ice-filled cocktail shaker
- Shake well to blend
- Strain into an ice-filled Collins (or Highball) glass
- Top with soda water
- Garnish with a maraschino cherry and a lemon wedge
There are two theories about how this cocktail, which is essentially just hard lemonade, originated. The wilder of the two is that the cocktail evolved from a game. Pranksters would tell a friend that a man named Tom Collins was saying insulting things about them at another bar; the friend would leave to find and confront this Tom Collins, triggering a fruitless, but hilarious search.
The second, more likely story is that Tom Collins was invented by a London bartender named John Collins who used Old Tom Gin to make the cocktail. Either way, it was first published in Jerry Thomas’s bartending bible The Bartender’s Guide in 1876 and has been a staple on bar menus around the world ever since.
Serve it in a tall glass over ice with a slice or wedge of lemon, and a maraschino cherry if you’ve got a few handy.