Friday, January 18, 2008
Your Weekend Imbibing: The Tom Collins
Posted by Josh in cocktails, Tom Collins
Ingredients:
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoons superfine sugar
1 1/2 ounces (1 jigger) gin
club soda or seltzer water
1 lemon slice for garnish
Directions:
In a tall glass stir together the lemon juice and the sugar until the sugar is dissolved, add the gin and enough ice cubes to fill the glass, and stir the drink well. Top off the drink with the club soda or the seltzer water, stir it well, and garnish it with the lemon slice.
Superfine sugar can be made by running regular sugar through a blender. Instead of superfine sugar, you can use simple syrup (boil 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar).
The kind of glass used in this drink (and pictured on the right) is called a Tom Collins glass and is named after the drink. The name for the drink itself comes from Old Tom Gin, which was a popular Gin brand form the middle of the 19th Century. The drink is essentially the same as a Gin Fizz but Tom Collins is a cooler name.