John Collins

Wayfinder

The John Collins is the head of the Collins family and its original. It is named, on the best available evidence, for a real headwaiter at Limmer's Hotel on Conduit Street in London, immortalised in an 1830s rhyme for his gin punch. Very few drinks have that kind of paperwork on their founder. What he poured was built on genever, the malty Dutch style then called Hollands, with lemon, sugar and soda. That crossed the Atlantic and founded a dynasty that went on to outgrow him entirely. The family then split over gin: American bars pouring the drink with sweetened Old Tom called it a Tom Collins after the spirit, and that name conquered. The official specification now builds the John on London Dry, with the note that Old Tom makes it a Tom. That is the recipe above, and it makes a clean, crisp long drink. The genever reading is the older one and it is a rounder, breadier thing entirely; it is carried below with its own measures.

ShakenLong DrinkClassicSessionable

Variations

Glassware: Collins Glass

Garnish: Lemon Wheel and Maraschino Cherry

Ingredients

Serves

Gin

45ml

What the official specification names, and a London Dry is what it means. Cleaner and more juniper-led than the genever the drink was built on, which is why the modern John Collins reads as a crisp long drink rather than a malty one.

Fresh Lemon Juice

30ml

The family's sour line, unchanged since the 1830s. Squeezed to order, because in a long soda-extended drink there is no concentration to hide oxidised juice behind.

Simple Syrup

15ml

Fifteen millilitres against thirty of lemon, which is a restrained sugar measure and the right one for a dry, juniper-led base. The genever build below takes considerably more, because malt has a grainy edge that wants rounding and juniper does not.

Soda Water

60ml

A generous top over fresh ice, and the trait that separates every Collins from every fizz. Well chilled and poured gently down the side.

Instructions

Add the gin, lemon juice and simple syrup to a shaker.

Fill with cubed ice and shake for 10 seconds.

Strain into a collins glass filled with fresh ice.

Top with the soda water and stir once.

Garnish with a lemon wheel and a cherry.

Source: the IBA (Official IBA specification; method ours). Last checked 13 August 2026.

Expert Tip

London Dry makes a crisp, dry, thoroughly summer long drink, and it is what the official specification means by gin. Fifteen millilitres of syrup against thirty of lemon is a restrained sugar measure, and it should be: there is nothing malty here for it to round off. The genever version below is a different proposition. Its malt-wine base gives a bready, almost whisky-adjacent character, so a John Collins built that way tastes closer to a sparkling whiskey sour than to the crisp modern one. It also takes more sugar, because genever's grain has a slightly bitter edge that juniper does not. Meet it that way once. Whichever you pour, add the soda last and stir once. A Collins is a carbonated drink and a second stir costs it most of the lift the first one left in place.

Flavour Profile

MaltLemonBreadySparklingRounded

Where It Comes From

John Collins was headwaiter at Limmer's Hotel and coffee house in Mayfair, and a surviving verse of the 1830s names him and his gin punch directly. It is one of very few cocktails whose inventor appears in rhyme, and considerably better evidence than most origin stories manage.

His drink was a single-serve gin punch: Hollands gin, lemon, sugar and soda. That is a Collins in everything but name, and the name arrived because people asked for John Collins's drink until the possessive fell off.

It emigrated to America with the century, and the American bars are where it acquired a family.

John Versus Tom

In American bars the drink was frequently made with Old Tom, the sweetened gin style that dominated there through the middle of the nineteenth century. Drinkers began ordering by the spirit, and by the 1870s the Tom Collins was the family's famous name.

That left the John as the older, drier, maltier reading, and it is a genuinely different drink rather than a lesser one. Genever's malt-wine base gives a rounder, breadier result: less crisp than a gin Collins and closer in character to a sparkling whiskey sour.

Later American usage muddled it further by sometimes reassigning the John name to a bourbon Collins. That is a real historical usage and it is not the original, which is why the whiskey version is better off with its own name.

The Genever Reading

Genever is not gin as most people understand it, and the drink is considerably rounder for it.

Its base is malt wine, a grain distillate closer to an unaged whisky than to a neutral spirit, with juniper and botanicals worked into it rather than defining it. The result is bready, faintly sweet and much heavier than London Dry, and in a Collins it changes the whole register: less crisp, more substantial, closer in character to a sparkling whiskey sour than to a summer highball.

The official specification builds on London Dry and reserves Old Tom for the Tom Collins, which is a clean and defensible taxonomy. It is also a more recent one than the drink. The genever build is what Limmer's poured, and it is the reason the John has a name of its own rather than being a footnote to its more famous son.

Why the Sugar Is Higher

The genever version takes twenty millilitres of syrup against twenty-five of lemon, where the official gin build takes fifteen against thirty. That is a considerable swing, and it is not because one is meant to be sweeter.

Genever's malt has a slightly bitter, grainy edge that juniper does not, and the extra sugar is rounding that off rather than sweetening the drink. Pour the genever build at the gin ratio and it reads as austere and faintly sour; pour the gin build at the genever ratio and it reads as flabby. The two are calibrated against their own base spirits, which is what a variation with its own measures is for.

How to Serve It

Shaken base, strained over fresh ice in a collins glass, generous soda, one stir, lemon wheel and a cherry.

Tall, cold and unhurried. The Collins is the sour that learned patience, and it sips where a fizz sprints. Make one beside a Tom Collins for the family's whole history in two glasses.

The Spirit

Genever

The Dutch ancestor of gin, built on malt wine rather than on neutral spirit. That base is why it drinks like the missing link between whisky and gin: it is literally that position on the family tree.

Learn more

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between a John and a Tom Collins?

The gin. The John is the older reading on genever or dry gin; the Tom takes sweetened Old Tom and took the fame with it. Same build, separated by a century of gin history and one very successful rename.

Was John Collins a real person?

On the best available evidence, yes: headwaiter at Limmer's Hotel in London, named with his gin punch in a surviving verse of the 1830s. Very few drinks have better paperwork for their founder than a contemporary verse.

Is a John Collins ever made with whiskey?

Later American usage sometimes moved the name to a bourbon Collins, which is a real historical usage and not the original. Keeping John for the gin version and naming the whiskey one separately is the tidier convention.

Why more syrup than a Tom Collins?

It applies to the genever build rather than the official one. Genever's malt has a slightly bitter, grainy edge that juniper does not, and the extra sugar rounds it off rather than sweetening the drink. The London Dry version takes considerably less, because there is nothing there for it to correct.

Master the Techniques

How to Shake a Cocktail Like a Pro

Tom Collins

The Tom Collins is a gin sour lengthened with soda: gin, fresh lemon, sugar syrup and soda water over ice in a tall glass. The simplicity is deceptive. Built with a quality London Dry, lemon squeezed to order and well-chilled soda poured carefully, it is one of the most refreshing long drinks there is. Built with bottled juice and flat soda, it is one of the most disappointing. The name comes from one of the odder stories in the canon. The Great Tom Collins Hoax of 1874 involved telling somebody that a man called Tom Collins had been disparaging them in a nearby bar, then sending them off to find a person who did not exist. It spread across American cities fast enough that the name entered everyday speech, and a long gin drink already being served as the John Collins acquired it almost by association. Old Tom gin, the sweeter style that preceded London Dry, was the format's original base and makes a rounder, gentler drink. Both are correct.

Gin Fizz

The Gin Fizz is the sour family’s effervescent branch and one of the golden age’s defining orders: gin, lemon and sugar shaken hard and fired into a small glass with soda, drunk fast while the sparkle holds. Jerry Thomas printed the fizz template in 1876, New Orleans made a religion of it, and by 1900 fizzes were being drunk by the dozen at American bars with shaker-men working in shifts. The classic serve is the part modern bars forget: a fizz takes no ice in the glass. It is shaken viciously cold, strained into a small chilled tumbler, topped with a short measure of soda and drunk in a few minutes. Ice in the glass makes it a Collins, which is a longer and lazier drink entirely. From this template the family branches. Egg white makes a Silver Fizz, yolk a Golden, the whole egg a Royal, and the Ramos added cream and orange flower water and demanded twelve minutes of shaking.

Southside

Nobody owns the Southside’s origin story, which is half its charm. New York claims it for the 21 Club, the speakeasy where it was the house pour for the well-dressed end of Prohibition; Long Island claims it for the Southside Sportsmen’s Club, where mint from the kitchen garden met gin after the shooting; Chicago claims it for the South Side itself, where mobs allegedly softened harsh bootleg gin with lemon, sugar and mint. All three stories involve gin that needed forgiving and mint that obliged. What emerged is the Mojito’s cooler-headed cousin: gin, citrus, sugar and mint, shaken and strained into a coupe rather than built long over ice. Without soda and crushed ice diluting the frame, the drink is more concentrated and more elegant, the mint reading as perfume rather than salad, the gin’s botanicals and the herb finishing each other’s sentences. It survived Prohibition for the simplest reason: it never needed bad gin to justify itself. With a good London Dry the Southside is one of the finest simple gin sours in the canon, a drink that dresses for dinner where the Mojito dresses for the beach.