Imbibe! (12 page)

Authors: David Wondrich

BOOK: Imbibe!

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NOTES ON INGREDIENTS:
There’s enough going on here that you can substitute Plymouth gin, or even a London dry gin, for the Hollands and still enjoy complete satisfaction. The anonymous 1887 version of Jerry Thomas’s book adds “1 or 2 dashes of Maraschino,” which is a good idea, and a “slice of lime,” which is neither good nor bad.

NOTES ON EXECUTION:
Begin by dissolving the sugar in the water.

JOHN COLLINS (AKA TOM COLLINS)

One dull and rainy morning around 1830 (give or take a few years), two of the grandsons of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the wittiest of Anglo-Irish playwrights, got to versifying to kill the time. Charles and Frank might not have been sparklers of their grandfather’s stature, but judging from what I’ve seen of their work that day neither were they the Adam Sandlers of their age. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen a complete version of it; when and if the whole thing was ever printed, I don’t know. But it circulated in manuscript and memory for many years and later antiquarians and nostalgic old men quoted a few stanzas in passing. One stanza, however, and only one made it into the public sphere (there are several variations on the last line):

My name is John Collins, head-waiter at Limmer’s,
The corner of Conduit Street, Hanover Square;
My chief occupation is filling of brimmers,
To solace young gentlemen laden with care.

In the rest of the verses, which were meant to be sung to the then-popular Welsh tune “Jenny Jones,” Collins—who was described by those who knew him as a “little, round, rosy-gilled body” with a good deal of bustle and a colorful turn of phrase—goes on to dissect Limmer’s Hotel’s other staff and, more important, many of its frightfully aristocratic, fast, and sporty guests and frequenters. Along the way, the brothers Sheridan allow their narrator to express a little pride in his barkeeping:

My ale-cup’s the best that ever you tasted,
Mr. Frank always drinks my gin-punch when he smokes;

I’m old but I’m hearty; I’m grey, but I’m merry;
I don’t wish to go, and few wish me gone;
Shall I bring you a pint, or a bottle of sherry,
To drink the good health, and long life of Old John?

But as we all know, it wasn’t sherry or pints of champagne that would ensure Old John’s long life; it was that “gin-punch” that Frank Sheridan liked so much. I don’t know how the formula for what Old John was serving at Limmer’s (usually as an eye-opener or corpse reviver) compares to what was later circulating under his name, since I’ve been unable to unearth a detailed description of the hotel’s Punch. But judging from that drink, the Punch was quite close to the Gin Punch served at the time by London’s Garrick Club, which combined gin, lemon juice, maraschino liqueur, and chilled soda water.

No matter; authentic Limmer’s recipe or not,
a
Gin Punch, anyway, got Collins’s name welded onto it and before you knew it “England’s morning ‘John Collins’ [was] following the sun and circling the world” (thus Webster). The
New York World
believed that the vector for transmission was officers of the British army, which is entirely plausible, the upper reaches of the army and Limmer’s drawing from the same social class. According to the
World
, the drink made it to New York in the late 1850s, when “a very eminent officer of the Royal Artillery” taught it to the boys behind the bar at the Clarendon Hotel, his New York headquarters. By 1865, anyway, it’s being mentioned in print, and before too many years have passed it’s become one of the indispensable summer drinks.

But America’s a big country, and things echo strangely in all that space. That happened to the John Collins in the 1870s. When it turns up in the new edition of Jerry Thomas’s book in 1876, it’s somehow turned into a
Tom
Collins. What gives?

It’s that echo. In 1874, you see, an annoying bit of tomfoolery began crisscrossing the country. It couldn’t be simpler: Turn to the guy standing next to you at the bar and say that you heard Tom Collins was going around badmouthing him, and that you just saw said Mr. Collins around the corner, down the street, across town, wherever. It sounds moronic, but judging from newspaper accounts of the hijinx that ensued—only a few of them fatal—it worked. At any rate, for people who had never heard of Limmer’s or Old John, “Tom Collins” must have made more sense as a drink name—particularly since the thing was generally made with Old Tom gin, one of the growth spirits of the time. Before long, the drink was a Tom Collins, and the name
John Collins
was reserved for offshoots and variations.

It’s likely that Old John was spared news of this travesty. Having put in his forty-odd years at Limmer’s and seen a great deal of life in the process, he retired in the late 1850s to a cottage outside London, where Dickens once visited him (Boz was a Gin Punch man from way back). I don’t know when he died, but it can’t have been all that much later.

(USE LARGE BAR-GLASS.)

TEASPOONFUL OF POWDERED SUGAR

THE JUICE OF HALF A LEMON

A WINE GLASS OF OLD TOM GIN

A BOTTLE OF PLAIN SODA

Shake up, or stir up with ice. Add a slice of lemon peel to finish.

SOURCE:
STEWARD & BARKEEPER’S MANUAL,
1869

NOTES ON INGREDIENTS:
Actually, many in fact preferred the softer, maltier Hollands in this drink. That bottle of soda would be the small kind, which held 6 ounces. As for variations: In 1876, Jerry Thomas (who was of the Tom gin school) listed whiskey and brandy versions alongside the gin one. The formulae were otherwise the same.

NOTES ON EXECUTION:
There are few arguments in the world of bartending more perennial than the distinction between Collinses and Fizzes. They both have essentially the same ingredients and both are tall, so it ultimately comes down to what you do with the ice: Do you leave it in or take it out? Considered historically, the way is a little clearer than many make it out to be.

The glasses of Gin Punch Old John would have been handing around would have been made with chilled soda water, but would not have had ice in them. In America, however, there was more ice and tall Punches were generally made with it in the glass, and this was a tall Punch (although the influential formula the
New York World
printed in 1877 left the matter up to individual taste). America’s bartenders were also used to shaking drinks and straining them. This is how Jerry Thomas made his, adding the cold soda at the end. But this is also how he made his Gin “Fiz”—in fact, the only difference between the two is that the Collins uses more of everything and goes into a bigger glass. The Fizz is, essentially, a short drink: It’s meant to be drunk down with dispatch. The Collins, however, is too big for that. This distinction is what bartenders seized on. Because it had some staying power in the glass, the Collins also had the potential to get warm. The answer to this is to put ice in the glass, and once you’re doing that there’s no point to shaking and straining. This, then, became the classic distinction between the drinks: a Fizz is shaken and strained, a Collins built in the glass over large, slow-melting cubes—and the larger the glass, the better. Eventually, the Tom Collins would have its own glass, a big, long 16-ouncer (bars were stocking special “John Collins” glasses as early as 1884).

The
World
had one stir the sugar in at the end, which will make the drink foam in a pleasing manner.

CLARET PUNCH

“You never see the perspiring laborer, with brawny arms bared to the elbow, and a brow beaded with huge drops of honest sweat, step up to a bar in a hot Summer’s day, and call for a claret punch!” No, for him it will be “Bourbon, rather than the delicious claret punch. . . . But your fine snob, or your cultured gentleman, will wipe his brow with his perfumed handkerchief, while he sips his punch, and insinuate that it’s ‘very hot, by Jove, you know.’ ”

Well, that’s the way the
Brooklyn Eagle
saw things in 1873, anyway. The
Eagle
says nothing about the
Sauterne Punch
that Thomas included in his book (simply substitute a cheap Sauternes for the claret), but if Claret Punch is a dude’s drink, that’s got to be one, too.

(USE LARGE BAR-GLASS.)

1
½
TABLE-SPOONFUL
[2 TSP]
OF SUGAR

1 SLICE OF LEMON

2 OR 3 SLICES OF ORANGE

Fill the tumbler with shaved ice, and then pour in your claret, shake well, and ornament with berries in season. Place a straw in the glass.

SOURCE: JERRY THOMAS, 1862

NOTES ON INGREDIENTS:
The wine doesn’t strictly have to be a Bordeaux; any full-bodied, dry red will do just fine.

NOTES ON EXECUTION:
Dissolve the sugar in a little water first (or just use an equal quantity of gum syrup). Add the wine, the citrus, and the ice, and shake vigorously. Pour unstrained into a tall glass and finish as directed.

MILK PUNCH

As a Punch bowl drink, Milk Punch goes back to the late 1600s or early 1700s (at the time, its invention was attributed to Aphra Behn, wit, actress, courtesan, and the first woman ever to earn her living solely by writing). But Milk Punch in a glass and Milk Punch in a bowl or bottle are two entirely different drinks. In the latter, the cream is deliberately made to curdle and then strained out. This makes for a drink that’s stable and undeniably smooth, but not necessarily lush. But in the former, where stability isn’t a concern since it only has to sit around long enough for the sport who ordered it to pick it up and insert it into his head, it’s all about the cream. And, in the case of the Professor’s formula, the alcohol. Not that he was alone in this regard: as the
Brooklyn Eagle
noted in 1873, speaking no doubt from experience, Milk Punch is “the surest thing in the world to get drunk on, and so fearfully drunk, that you won’t know whether you are a cow, yourself, or some other foolish thing.”

(USE LARGE BAR-GLASS.)

1 TABLE-SPOONFUL
[2 TSP]
OF FINE WHITE SUGAR

2 TABLE-SPOONFULS
[2 TSP]
OF WATER

1 WINE-GLASS
[2 OZ]
OF COGNAC BRANDY

½ WINE-GLASS
[1 OZ]
OF SANTA CRUZ RUM

1/3 TUMBLERFUL OF SHAVED ICE

Fill with milk, shake the ingredients well together, and grate a little nutmeg on top

SOURCE: JERRY THOMAS, 1862

NOTES ON INGREDIENTS :
This drink will not lose its appeal should you follow the path of discretion and cut back by half the brandy (use a good cognac) and the rum (which should be smooth, rich, and well-aged). For the variation known as
Egg Milk Punch
, see Egg Nogg, which is the same thing.

NOTES ON EXECUTION :
Begin by dissolving the sugar in the water; shake with extreme prejudice (and if using an egg, with even more violence than that). Serve with a straw.

MISSISSIPPI PUNCH

I don’t know if Jerry Thomas picked this up when he was at the Planter’s House in St. Louis or in New Orleans, Keokuk, or somewhere else during his days “along the Mississippi,” as he put it. Wherever it’s from, it testifies to the capacity and taste of our forbears.

Cut all the boozes in half and you have the
El Dorado Punch
, which was included in the section of new drinks tacked on to the end of the 1876 second edition of Thomas’s book. Was this a liquid reminiscence of his forty-niner days? The fact that it wasn’t included in the first edition somewhat militates against that, but maybe he just forgot and took the opportunity to correct his error.

(USE LARGE BAR-GLASS.)

1 WINE-GLASS
[2 OZ]
OF BRANDY

½ WINE-GLASS
[1 OZ]
OF JAMAICA RUM

½ WINE-GLASS
[1 OZ]
OF BOURBON WHISKEY

1½ TABLE-SPOONFUL
[1 TBSP]
OF POWDERED WHITE SUGAR

¼ [½]
OF A LARGE LEMON

Fill a tumbler with shaved ice.

The above must be well shaken, and to those who like their draughts “like linked sweetness long drawn out,” let them use a glass tube or straw to sip the nectar through.The top of this punch should be ornamented with small pieces of orange, and berries in season.

SOURCE: JERRY THOMAS, 1862

NOTES ON INGREDIENTS:
Major Unett, of Her Majesty’s 3rd Light Dragoons, included a Mississippi Punch in the list of “American summer drinks” he published in the
Illustrated London News
in the late 1850s; his version relied on “one glass [i.e., 2 oz] of Outard [sic] brandy, half ditto of Jamaica rum [and] a tablespoonful of arrack” for its motive power. This is delightful, if you can get your hands on the arrack (what you want here is the Indonesian kind, as aged and bottled in Northwest Europe, rather than the anise-flavored Middle Eastern kind).

NOTES ON EXECUTION:
Squeeze the lemon into the mixing glass, add the sugar, and stir to dissolve it. Then add the spirits and the ice and shake well. Serve unstrained.

ST. CHARLES PUNCH

The St. Charles Hotel was one of New Orleans’s two finest. Where the St. Louis (which stood on the site now occupied by the Royal Orleans) served the French Quarter, the St. Charles was on the avenue of the same name, across Canal in the American part of town. There’s no shortage of lore about the St. Charles, which before the Civil War was for a time considered one of the two or three best hotels in America, but the stories will have to await another venue. Suffice it to say that its Punch, which Thomas must’ve picked up in New Orleans, speaks for it eloquently.

(USE LARGE BAR-GLASS.)

1 TABLE-SPOONFUL
[1 TSP]
OF SUGAR

1 WINE-GLASS
[2 OZ]
OF PORT WINE

1 PONY-GLASS
[1 OZ]
OF BRANDY

THE JUICE OF ¼ OF A LEMON

Fill the tumbler with shaved ice, shake well, ornament with fruits in season, and serve with a straw.

SOURCE: JERRY THOMAS, 1862