History of a Hong Kong bar favourite – the Tom Collins cocktail
From its humble beginnings in the late 1800s, the Tom Collins cocktail has become a bar favourite in Hong Kong and is simple enough to make effectively at home
We may be certain that the Tom Collins is one of the great cooling summer cocktails, but it is impossible to know for sure where, when or by whom it was first mixed, or how it got its name.
There are several theories about the latter question. One is that it derives from a practical joker’s hoax that spread all over North America in 1874. This involved telling credulous barflies that a fictitious character called Tom Collins was drinking in another bar, and slandering them to the customers. The outraged victim would then set off on a wild goose chase to find him.
It became an immensely popular prank. Bartenders who were in on the joke would keep redirecting Collins’ irate pursuers on to the next establishment, and newspapers got in on the act by reporting sightings of him.
It may well have been this then recent phenomenon that inspired the pioneering bartender Jerry Thomas to give the drink that name in the 1876 edition of his classic Bar-Tenders Guide– where the drink appears under that name for the first time – but there are other theories as to its origin.
One is that Tom Collins is a corruption of John Collins – a recipe for a drink of that name having been printed earlier, in 1869, possibly originating in England where a near relation, gin punch, was a well established favourite tipple.
Another possibility is that the spirit used for early Tom Collins cocktails was Old Tom gin, a sweeter spirit than London Dry which eventually became the dominant style.