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Four words, one set of ingredients, four different drinks.
Gin, citrus, sugar and soda can be put together four ways, and each way has a name that is older than most of the bottles on the shelf. The ingredients barely change. What changes is whether the drink is shaken or built, whether there is ice in the glass, how much soda follows, and in one case whether there is any sugar at all.
The gin long drinks side by side: specifications from the IBA, dates from Wikipedia and Difford’s Guide, both secondary sources
Sling
- Build and glass
- Built in a sling glass of about 40cl; nutmeg grated on top
- Ice in the glass
- Yes
- Citrus and sugar
- Historically none; the modern Gin Sling takes lemon and syrup
- Soda
- Historically water, now about 60ml
- Oldest printing checked
- Spirit, sugar and water by the 1750s; bittered sling defined as a cocktail, 1806
Collins
- Build and glass
- Built over a full column of ice in a collins glass of 30 to 42cl; one lift of the spoon
- Ice in the glass
- Yes
- Citrus and sugar
- Lemon and syrup
- Soda
- Most: 60ml in the IBA John Collins, 90ml in the house Tom Collins
- Oldest printing checked
- Harry Johnson, 1882; Jerry Thomas by the 1887 edition
Fizz
- Build and glass
- Shaken hard with ice, strained into a small chilled tumbler, soda on top
- Ice in the glass
- No
- Citrus and sugar
- Lemon and syrup
- Soda
- Least: a splash in the IBA Gin Fizz, 60ml in the house version
- Oldest printing checked
- Jerry Thomas, as Fiz, by the 1887 edition
Rickey
- Build and glass
- Built over ice in a highball of 34 to 42cl
- Ice in the glass
- Yes
- Citrus and sugar
- Lime and no sugar
- Soda
- About 100 to 125ml
- Oldest printing checked
- Tim Daly, 1903, on Plymouth gin; the bourbon original is dated to 1883
| Drink | Build and glass | Ice in the glass | Citrus and sugar | Soda | Oldest printing checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sling | Built in a sling glass of about 40cl; nutmeg grated on top | Yes | Historically none; the modern Gin Sling takes lemon and syrup | Historically water, now about 60ml | Spirit, sugar and water by the 1750s; bittered sling defined as a cocktail, 1806 |
| Collins | Built over a full column of ice in a collins glass of 30 to 42cl; one lift of the spoon | Yes | Lemon and syrup | Most: 60ml in the IBA John Collins, 90ml in the house Tom Collins | Harry Johnson, 1882; Jerry Thomas by the 1887 edition |
| Fizz | Shaken hard with ice, strained into a small chilled tumbler, soda on top | No | Lemon and syrup | Least: a splash in the IBA Gin Fizz, 60ml in the house version | Jerry Thomas, as Fiz, by the 1887 edition |
| Rickey | Built over ice in a highball of 34 to 42cl | Yes | Lime and no sugar | About 100 to 125ml | Tim Daly, 1903, on Plymouth gin; the bourbon original is dated to 1883 |
The two pages people reach most often, the Tom Collins and the Gin Sling, carry the recipes. The table is the map, and the sections below answer the questions the recipes cannot: where each word came from, who Tom Collins was, and how a sling became a cocktail.
The sling came first, and a cocktail was once a bittered one.
Sling is the oldest of the four words. Wikipedia’s article on the sling, a secondary source, dates it to about 1759, as a single-serving punch, and its article on the Singapore sling has the gin sling attested from 1790. The word’s own origin is uncertain; a German verb meaning to swallow fast is the usual guess, and the Oxford English Dictionary does not commit.
On 13 May 1806 a newspaper in Hudson, New York, The Balance and Columbian Repository, answered a reader who had asked what a cocktail was: a stimulating liquor of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters, vulgarly called a bittered sling. Wikipedia’s article on the cocktail calls it the first definition of the cocktail as a drink, and it defines it as a sling with bitters in it. Jerry Thomas’s guide still gives the sling that way in its 1887 edition, as sugar dissolved in water, a glass of spirit and a lump of ice, with nutmeg grated on top; the nutmeg is what separated his sling from his toddy.
The modern Gin Sling has taken on lemon and soda, which pulls it towards the Collins. What keeps it a sling is proportion and spice: less soda than a Collins, so the gin stays in front, and fresh nutmeg over the top, which a Collins never had. It is served in a sling glass, tall and footed, about 40cl.
The Singapore Sling is a sling in name and a punch in build.
The Singapore Sling was created at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore some time between 1899 and 1915, by Wikipedia’s account, and is reputed to be the work of Ngiam Tong Boon, a bartender at the Long Bar; it was first called a gin sling. By the same account the original recipe was lost after the 1930s. The version the International Bartenders Association publishes is a long, pink, fruit-led drink of gin, three liqueurs, pineapple and lime, shaken and served over ice: a sling in name and a punch in build.
A Collins is a sour lengthened with soda and built over ice.
A Collins is a gin sour lengthened with soda and built long over ice: spirit, lemon and sugar in a tall glass packed with ice, soda poured on top and one lift of the spoon. It is made to be drunk over an hour. The International Bartenders Association’s John Collins is 45ml of gin, 30ml of lemon, 15ml of syrup and 60ml of soda built in a highball, with a note that Old Tom gin makes it a Tom Collins. The house Tom Collins runs longer, 60ml of London Dry and 90ml of soda.
The oldest printed Collins recipes that can be checked are Harry Johnson’s, in his bartender’s manual of 1882: a John Collins on Holland gin, which is genever, and a Tom Collins on Old Tom. Jerry Thomas’s guide prints a Tom Collins in whiskey, brandy and gin versions, shaken with lemon and gum syrup, strained, then filled with soda to be drunk while lively; the usual dating puts those in the 1876 edition, and they are in the 1887 edition checked here. A John Collins is often said to appear in a manual of 1869; Difford’s Guide searched that book and could not find it.
The glass took the drink’s name. A collins glass is a tall, slim tumbler of 30 to 42cl, built for a full column of ice and a small surface that keeps the soda lively. The Vodka Collins, the Whiskey Collins and the Elderflower Collins are the same frame with the spirit or the sweetener changed.
Was Tom Collins a real person?
No. Wikipedia’s article on the Tom Collins, a secondary source, records that in 1874 a practical joke swept New York, Pennsylvania and other American cities: you told a friend that a man named Tom Collins was in a nearby bar saying unpleasant things about him, and watched him go looking. Newspapers printed false sightings and music hall songs celebrated the hoax. The drink called Tom Collins turns up in print within a few years, and the hoax is the usual explanation for the name. The other explanation is Old Tom gin, the sweetened style the early recipes call for. The record supports both and settles neither. In 1948 David Embury wrote, as Difford’s Guide quotes him, that a Tom Collins was made with Old Tom and a John Collins with Holland gin, and that London Dry had since muddled the two names.
Was John Collins a real person?
Probably. Wikipedia’s article on the John Collins, a secondary source, names a head waiter of that name at Limmer’s Old House on Conduit Street in Mayfair, a hotel and coffee house of about 1790 to 1817, and Difford’s Guide cites a memoir calling it famous for its gin punch. A verse of 1892, reproduced by Difford’s Guide, begins with his name and his address and says the young gentlemen drank his gin punch. The verse fixes the man; it gives no recipe. By Wikipedia’s account, in 1891 a British physician, Morell Mackenzie, claimed in print that England had invented the drink and that a John Collins had created it, and Punch magazine disparaged the claim at once. Difford’s Guide judges the Collins an adaptation of the gin punch poured at Limmer’s.
A fizz is shaken hard and served short, with no ice in the glass.
A fizz is the same sour shaken hard with ice, strained into a small glass with no ice in it, and lifted with a short measure of soda. It is served short and drunk fast, while the soda is still lively. The International Bartenders Association’s Gin Fizz is 45ml of gin, 30ml of lemon and 10ml of syrup, shaken, poured into a thin tall tumbler, topped with a splash of soda and served without ice.
That is the whole difference from a Collins. Same ingredients, close to the same measures; the Collins is built over ice and served long, the fizz is shaken, served without ice and served short. Jerry Thomas’s guide spells it Fiz, with one z, and gives gin, whiskey, brandy and Santa Cruz rum versions in the 1887 edition.
New Orleans made the fizz its own. Wikipedia’s article on the fizz, a secondary source, credits Henry Ramos with the Ramos Gin Fizz at his Imperial Cabinet saloon in 1888, with cream, egg white and orange flower water shaken for minutes into a foam. The egg variations followed: silver with the white, golden with the yolk, royal with the whole egg. A diamond fizz tops the sour with sparkling wine instead of soda, which is the French 75. The Sloe Gin Fizz and the Morning Glory Fizz show the frame holding a liqueur and a whisky.
A rickey is lime and soda with no sugar at all.
A rickey is spirit, lime and soda over ice with little or no sugar. It is the driest of the four and the only one built on lime rather than lemon. The house Gin Rickey is 60ml of London Dry gin and 25ml of fresh lime juice over ice in a highball, topped with 100 to 125ml of soda, and there is no sugar in it at all.
Wikipedia’s article on the rickey, a secondary source, says it began in Washington in the 1880s as a bourbon drink. At Shoomaker’s bar on E Street, the bartender George Williamson is said to have added lime to the bourbon and sparkling water of Colonel Joe Rickey, a Missouri lobbyist who owned the bar, and the order took his name; 1883 is the year usually given. By the same account, gin took over a decade later, and a Gin Rickey printed in Tim Daly’s bartenders’ encyclopaedia of 1903 uses Plymouth gin, a squeezed lime and seltzer.
With no sugar to round anything off, the lime has to be squeezed on the day. Lime juice turns flat and bitter within hours, and a rickey has nothing to hide that behind.
The glass and the ice decide which drink you have made.
Put the four side by side and the differences are mechanical. A sling and a Collins are built in the glass over ice; a fizz is shaken and poured over none. A Collins and a sling take lemon and sugar; a rickey takes lime and no sugar. A Collins takes the most soda, a fizz the least.
The glass follows the build. Built drinks go into a collins glass or highball filled to the top with cubed ice before anything is poured, because a full column of ice melts slowly and three cubes melt fast. A fizz goes into a small chilled glass with no ice. In every case the soda is poured last, cold, down the inside of the glass, and the drink is lifted once with the spoon; every extra stir costs carbonation. Cocktail terms has the sling, fizz and Collins entries in one place.
The facts here come from the bar books and the record.
The 1806 definition is The Balance and Columbian Repository, Hudson, New York, 13 May 1806, volume V, number 19, page 146, as reproduced in Wikipedia’s article on the cocktail. The sling and Collins recipes of Jerry Thomas are from the 1887 edition of his Bar-Tender’s Guide, read in the Internet Archive’s copy on 12 October 2026. Harry Johnson’s 1882 recipes and the Embury quotation of 1948 are as reproduced by Difford’s Guide. The hoax of 1874, the Mackenzie article of 1891, the Limmer’s dates and the rickey’s history, including the 1903 recipe and the 2011 resolution, are from Wikipedia’s articles on the Tom Collins, the John Collins and the rickey, which are secondary sources. The IBA specifications for the John Collins, the Gin Fizz and the Singapore Sling were read on iba-world.com on 12 October 2026.