On a sunny evening in April 1874 (quite possibly the 1st), a man named Jones marched into New York’s prestigious Delmonico’s asking for the whereabouts of a ‘little man with a small black moustache.’ Just a reminder that this was 15 years before Adolf Hitler was born, so no, he wasn’t looking for him. The hostess at the NY hotspot told Jones that he had just missed the customer, who came in for a reservation and said he would be back in an hour. Jones found this news a bit irritating. This was the third place he had been to, and he was losing his steam. Still, he headed to the next destination, which was a billiards room named the Springer House. Normally Jones wouldn’t be so interested in finding someone but earlier that day, he had been told by a good friend that this moustached man was roaming around the city talking shit about his wife. How dare he? Jones still angered by the mere suggestion his spouse would leave him for someone else, marched down to the billiard room – but the elusive customer had already gone. For the rest of the evening, Jones went from venue to venue demanding he be introduced to this man but in the end, he was never able to catch him. The man’s name was Tom Collins. The reason why Jones never found him, was because Tom Collins didn’t actually exist.
This is one of many accounts of a phenomenon called the Tom Collins Hoax. I say many accounts because the residents of New York found this joke so entertaining, that they began using it on all their friends. During the summer of 1874, men around the city were calling into random places asking for a Tom Collins and sometimes beating the crap out of an innocent someone if they did manage to find a person with that name. The prank, which evolved to accuse poor Tom of any general sort of insulting slander, got so out of hand that newspapers across the country from California to Maine, to Georgia, and states in between, began reporting on Tom Collins sightings in and around their own cities. He was reportedly attending the theatre, and dining at the best restaurants. His presence was even noted at a few women’s suffrage meetings. In Charleston South Carolina, one ill-informed (that’s my nice way of saying dumbass) judge even issued a warrant for Tom Collin’s arrest for causing mayhem in his city. Some precincts even had their police force searching for him. Of course, he was never found. The stupidity of law enforcement aside, this mysterious man’s name was circulating throughout the press so frequently that the imaginary Tom Collins became a celebrity. Americans loved Tom so much it took almost three years for people to find a new form of entertainment.
Why is this important to the cocktail? It isn’t really. Unless you’re trying to figure out the origins of a cocktail called, the Tom Collins, which may have originally been a John Collins. It has been reported by some, that the Tom Collins Hoax was a hospitality joke that resulted in a lot of people being served this drink as they were roaming the city looking for the imaginary slanderer. But I am not sure that is the case. In fact, before the 1874 hoax, it seems to me, not all too many drinkers even knew what a Tom or even John Collins was. I would go as far to say that the drink itself might have inherited this name just because the hoax was so popular.
In the 1876 Bartender’s Guide, a series of drinks are listed calling for sugar syrup, lemon juice, sparkling soda, and some kind of spirit, either whiskey, brandy, or gin. The name of the drinks? The Tom Collins. The author of The Bartender’s Guide? My favourite grifter of all time, Jerry Thomas. But the combination of lemon juice, sugar, water and gin was not new.
Published in 1869, The Stewards and Barkeepers Manual featured a drink with the same ingredients. And even before that, the 1864 Australian and English Cookery Book also included a recipe, making it likely the drink had English origins. Regardless, the popular obscurity of the Tom Collins sent drinkers into a tizzy. Some argued that the drink was an American invention, others believed it came from a headwaiter who worked at Limmer’s Old House in Mayfair London between 1790 and 1869. The waiter’s name was John Collins, not Tom. Or maybe it was Jim Collins. Truthfully? No one knows exactly where the recipe for the John/Tom Collins came from. But we do know that eventually the John Collins only differed slightly from a single serve of gin punch by specifying the use of Old Tom’s English gin, rather than the typical Dutch Jenever. Who/What is Jenever? Well, that is for a different post.
** What do you think? Do you care who invented the Tom Collins? Do you think a hoax like this would still work in any cities today? Do you want to hear more about Jenever? I want to know! Share your thoughts in the comments/chat below!