Collins

What is a Collins?

The Collins is the tall built brother of the fizz: spirit, lemon, sugar and plenty of soda, built long in the glass and served with ice. The most famous member is the Tom Collins with gin, and its name carries one of the most entertaining stories in bar culture.

The hoax of 1874

In the summer of 1874 a prank went around the United States, the Tom Collins hoax: people told their friends that a certain Tom Collins was speaking badly about them at a nearby bar, and whoever went to look found, of course, nobody. Newspapers reported on the wave, that part is well documented. That afterwards, of all drinks, the gin sour with soda took on the name Tom Collins is told and fits well: the drink was presumably the bartenders' answer to everyone looking for the good-for-nothing Collins. A prank with an echo, right up to today.

What makes a Collins

• Built, not shaken: carbonation does not tolerate a shaker, you know the rule from our build entry: shaken for texture, stirred for silk, built for bubbles and tempo
• Long and light: the highball glass is its home, and why the narrow shape keeps the bubbles awake is in our highball glass entry
• Fresh until the last sip: ice to the top, soda added right before serving

Distinction: Collins and fizz

Both are children of the sour: a Collins gets built long in the glass and generously filled with soda, a fizz gets shaken and only lightly sparkled. The Collins is the thirst quencher, the fizz is the little refiner.

Remember: the sour is the formula, the fizz the sparkle, the Collins the length, the daisy the sweetness, the flip the silk, the smash the ice.

At our lounge

A Collins at our place is the drink for long evenings: built, chilled and honestly filled. Feel free to ask, classically we build it with gin, and whoever likes can try the whiskey version.