Collins
13 recipes
This Field Manual holds 13 recipes in the collins family. A collins is a sour lengthened with soda water: spirit, lemon, sugar and bubbles, built tall over ice. It is a Tom Collins whatever the spirit, and the name changes with it.
The soda is what separates it from a fizz, which is shaken and served short. A collins is built in the glass and stays long, so the ice matters more than the shake: fill the glass and the drink stays cold without watering, half-fill it and it is thin by the second mouthful. Lemon is standard, lime makes it sharper, and the sugar comes down as the citrus goes up.
Base Spirit
Difficulty Level
Adios Motherfucker
The Adios Motherfucker, known in polite company by its initialism AMF, is a direct structural descendant of the Long Island Iced Tea. Blue curaçao replaces the original's triple
Boston Trash Can
The Boston Trash Can, also widely known as the Irish Trash Can, is a six-spirit party drink built around one conceit: an open can of Red Bull dropped inverted into a tall glass of
Elderflower Collins
The Elderflower Collins is a Tom Collins with the sugar upgraded to blossom. Gin, lemon and soda are unchanged; twenty millilitres of elderflower liqueur stands where the syrup
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead is the Long Island Iced Tea stripped of its cola float and rebuilt with raspberry liqueur. Where the Long Island uses a short cola pour for colour, dilution and
John Collins
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
Long Island Iced Tea
The Long Island Iced Tea is one of the most ordered cocktails in the world and one of the most misunderstood. Its reputation as a vehicle for maximum alcohol at minimum cost has
Purple Rain
The Purple Rain is the most culturally specific member of the Long Island Iced Tea family. It is attributed to Prince, who is said to have developed it at his bar and
Russian Spring Punch
The Russian Spring Punch is Dick Bradsell's, built in London in the late 1980s, and it is a lemon sour with crème de cassis in it and champagne on top. Bradsell is reported to
Texas Iced Tea
The Texas Iced Tea takes everything the Long Island Iced Tea is and makes it bigger. Where the Long Island builds its balance across five spirits, this adds bourbon as a sixth,
Tokyo Iced Tea
The Tokyo Iced Tea takes the Long Island Iced Tea’s five-spirit foundation and makes a single defining substitution: Midori melon liqueur replaces the cola float, turning the
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
Vodka Collins
The Vodka Collins is the fourth passport in a family that has been reissuing them since Limmer’s Hotel. The formula never changes: spirit, lemon, sugar, soda, tall ice. Only the
Whiskey Collins
The Whiskey Collins is the Collins template on bourbon: spirit, fresh lemon and sugar shaken together, strained over ice and lengthened with soda. It is the same build as a Tom