Tom’s Tom

So revered is the Tom Collins that the drink — most well known as a refreshing cocktail on summer days — has a namesake sexy and slender glass. It first surfaced when America was turning 100, but with a long history, how the Tom Collins came to be is tough to pinpoint. A few historians credit a London waiter named John Collins for the drink’s name while others cite a fictitious, bad-mouthing, bar-loving Tom Collins for sparking the cocktail’s popularity. What is clear, though, is the Tom Collins still is a sweet drink. For this recipe, we added strawberries, a fruit made for summertime indulgence.

Ingredients:
•  1.5 ounces of Beefeater gin
•  3 strawberries, stemmed
•  Splash of simple syrup
(1 part sugar dissolved in 1 part hot water)
•  Sour mix almost to fill
•  Lemon peel, for garnish

Instructions:
Place strawberries in glass. Add simple syrup. Muddle until broken down. Add Beefeater and sour mix. Transfer to iced shaking tin. Shake well, just until frost forms outside the tin. Pour over same glass, filled with ice. Take lemon peel and twist to express the citrus smell over the glass.

– Tom Fischer of Evansville is the host of an online show, BourbonBlog.com. He works closely with his website’s drink advisor, mixologist Stephen Dennison.

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