• Share

One of the only moments that’s stuck with me from The Great Gatsby was a morning-after scene, in which the characters watch the house staff cart away giant mounds of squeezed-up fruit that had been used the night before. Fitzgerald wanted the fruit to symbolize how much the rich wasted, but I was always confused. What the hell were they doing with all that fruit?

Now it makes perfect sense to me. Bartenders back then didn’t have all the mixers we work with now. They didn’t have cola, for the most part, and they certainly didn’t have sour mix (or margarita mix, or daiquiri mix, or Collins mix, or whatever else you want to call it.) All they had was sugar, ice, and fruit. If they wanted to serve cocktails or mixed drinks, they had to make their own mixers, on the spot.

And they did. Take a look at a drink like a Tom Collins. You’re mixing lemon, sugar, and water (melted from the ice) together. That’s sour mix. It’s better, in fact, because you’re making it from fresh-squeezed juice, and you’re getting extra flavor from the lemon rind that isn’t normally included in a premade bottle of sour mix (which is basically lemonade with slightly less sugar.) Yes, it’s a simple recipe, but that’s kind of the point – you don’t want anything too complex to cover up the taste of the gin, do you?

Tom Collins

• 2 oz. gin
• Juice of one lemon
• 2 tsp. sugar (if possible, use powdered sugar – it dissolves faster)
• Cracked or cubed ice
• Soda water

Juice one lemon (using some sort of juicing tool will save you time and yield more juice.) Combine the lemon juice, gin, and sugar in a cocktail shaker and shake vigorously. Strain the mix into a tall glass filled with fresh ice, then fill with soda water.

This is a pretty versatile recipe. Sub whiskey in for the gin, and you get a John Collins. A brandy Collins or vodka Collins would work just as well, though neither of them has a special name. And for extra credit, you can make a Tom Collins, but fill it with champagne instead of soda water at the end. That gives you a French 75, a drink named after a cannon used in World War I. Consume accordingly.

P.S. – If you plan on making many drinks with fresh citrus, you might want to go out and find some sort of juicer. Mine’s just an $8 handheld version that helps to squeeze every last drop from your fruit without killing your knuckles. Also, I read on a box of limes once that if you slice your citrus into thirds instead of halves, you’ll get every last drop of juice out of it. I haven’t done enough testing to be sure about that, but I’ll pass on the tip nonetheless.