Ginned Up – How Tom Collins Brought Gin to La Canada

The gin-based cocktail, Tom Collins, got its name from “the great Tom Collins hoax of 1874,” an immature prank whereby a person went to a bar and told a patron that someone named Tom Collins was talking trash about him. The patron, incensed by the idea that Tom Collins would talk smack about him, would then go looking for Tom in as many bars as it took to find him…and hilarity ensued. It didn’t take long for an enterprising bartender to name a drink after the non-existent Mr. Collins. And gin finally got some respect. Sort of.

Gin is having a resurgence in popularity due to trendy craft cocktails and the TV show Mad Men, which robustly praised a drinking culture and resurrected classic cocktails (see my article on 10 classic cocktails HERE). Gin is also perennially known as the preferred base for the martinis of James Bond. So why is gin relevant and frankly how is it that the largest gin list for any bar in North America is not in Los Angeles, Manhattan nor Chicago, but my tiny hometown of La Canada Flintridge at The Flintridge Proper?

Brady and his 200+ gins

I sat down with The Flintridge Proper owner Brady Caverly recently when I revisited my familial digs. “Due to the fact that aged spirits were largely unavailable during prohibition, many of the best golden age cocktails are gin-based like the Tom Collins, Bees Knees, French 75, Negroni, the Martini,” says Caverly, who offers over 200 gins from across the globe including vintage gins from the 1980s, 70s and as far back as 1964. “Gin is appropriately enjoying a renaissance in the mixology movement because of its prominent role in the classics but also because no other spirit offers the diversity of flavor profiles,” Caverly suggests. Sure, gin has a historic context, first distilled by the Dutch in the 1600s and more recently as the signature cocktail at the Coconut Grove in Hollywood in the 1930s, and the still popular dirty martini at Musso & Frank Grill, Hollywood’s oldest restaurant. But that is exactly the point – gin seems stuck in a bygone era, namely your grandfather’s.

Gin is like the middle child of a complex and boisterous family. Whiskey and bourbon are the first-born kids, dominating, aggressive, popular; tequila and vodka are the youngest, goofy kids, the irresponsible ones, the partiers. And there gin sits, the quiet middle spirit who always seems to be “resurging” but never quite breaks out of its shell. “When most people think of gin they think of London Dry, this is the gin our fathers drank with very strong juniper and citrus notes,” says Caverly. “But the majority of the small batch and artisanal gins that makeup our nation's largest collection are in the New World-style, where the juniper is dialed back to be replaced by a dizzying array of botanicals, citrus, spices and other natural ingredients - from the rose notes of Nolets, to the cucumber notes of Hendricks, there is literally a gin for every flavor.”

Arne of Distillery 209

Arne Hillesland, master distiller and “ginerator” for Distillery No. 209 based in San Francisco agrees. “The only gins available for generations were heavy juniper bombs that took some getting used to, or created abject hatred among those who overindulged,” he told me. With the emphasis of distillers like Hillesland, gin is reinventing itself. “Gin, since it is flavored with botanicals and other natural ingredients, can have an almost infinite variety of flavors for all different uses in cocktails as well as neat in a glass,” Caverly says. “By law in the U.S. and many other countries, gin must be a spirit predominately flavored with juniper,” Hillesland says, and asserts that for at least four centuries gin has been much more than just juniper. “Other botanicals have played major parts giving gin depth of flavor and mixability. This increases the approachability for the consumer ready to move on from vodka or other spirits with low flavor content. But if a distiller backs away too much from Juniper they end up with just another flavored vodka.” And the average consumer may not really understand clear spirits enough to know the difference. “It’s all about education,” says Hillesland. “The Screwdriver, the Gimlet, the Greyhound, the Bloody Mary and others are such great cocktails when made in their original gin format instead of vodka.”

And Hillesland notes the making of gin allows for more diverse expression of the final spirit. “All the other major spirits stop the distillation process when gin is just getting fun. Rum, whisky, tequila, brandy, vodka make (typically) one to four passes through the still and then it’s onto bottling or aging. Making gin requires starting with a pure spirit, then follows a process of defining all the botanicals and their amounts, how they are processed to determine the unique flavor profile created in your final distillation with the botanicals added to the pure spirit base,” Hillesland says. Therefore The Flintridge Proper is the de facto stop for a gin lover, or a newbie. “We offer flights of gin where guests enjoy the spirit neat as you would a fine scotch, and I expect to see more folks drinking gin straight in the future,” says Caverly. And with the enthusiasm of people like Caverly and Hillesland, the gin movement has its boosters. “Just as America’s tastes in food are maturing towards the more genuine, flavorful, handcrafted products, I believe that when consumers are educated more about gin they will realize it’s a fantastic and versatile spirit,” Hillesland told me.

Drink Like a Mad Man - 10 Classic Cocktails From Mad Men

Brandi Boles prepares the cocktails at Tom Bergins

Mad Men helped revive the cool factor of traditional old-school cocktails. Throughout the show the booze flows freely and Don Draper and company drink a lot. In fact the very first drink Don Draper orders in the first episode of the first season was an Old Fashioned, and from there cocktails became their own character in the show. I asked the good folks at TomBergin’s Public House, who hold one of the oldest liquor licenses in Los Angeles, to craft these drinks so I could photograph them using traditional glass ware. Noteworthy for the final season is that watering holes like Tom Bergin’s and others will be hosting Sunday night Mad Men viewing parties, complete with their versions of these cocktails (Tom Bergin’s is offering each cocktail at just $10), costumes and more, so if you don’t want to make a great cocktail, you can still order one.

Bloody Mary: The quintessential “morning after” cocktail is believed to cure hangovers due to its use of a vegetable base, typically tomato. I’m not certain a hangover is cured by more alcohol but Don’s employer, Sterling Cooper & Partners, had copious pitchers of them ready for their morning ad meetings. Of course at Don and wife Betty’s house on any given Sunday they were staples as well, not to mention it was a favorite drink of Peggy’s. Assuming you’re not merely adding alcohol to a V-8, there are many different versions around. The best strike a balance between the spice, the tomato and the booze making for a multi-dimensional drink.

Brandy Alexander: With its creamy sweet taste, the Brandy Alexander is akin to a milkshake rather than a cocktail. Drama critic and Algonquin Round Table member Alexander Woolcott claimed that it was named after him, but we’re sure that’s not true, though its origins are dubious. In the first season, episode 11 before she was the copy chief at Sterling Cooper then secretary Peggy Olsen, trying to appear sophisticated and beyond her years, orders a Brandy Alexander while on a date with a truck driver. She insists the drink is not sweet enough, which tells you why she was just merely a secretary. Why it works is that it’s like an adult candy bar in a glass; sweet tooth satisfaction with a kick.

Gimlet: In the second episode Betty Draper joins her husband Don, Roger Sterling and Roger’s first wife Mona for dinner and drinks. Foreshadowing her later apparent insecurities Betty downs Gimlets like it was a circus trick, then packs in a heavy, rich dinner of Lobster Newburg whose ingredients include lots of cream, butter and eggs. On the way home Betty realizes the error of her ways. “Lobster Newburg and gimlets should get a divorce,” she says. “They're not getting along very well.” Raymond Chandler opined about Gimlets in his classic book, The Long Goodbye, and he preferred gin over vodka. Perhaps Betty should have read more Chandler. The Gimlet is a light, streamlined drink, simple and pure, making it easy to consume.

Mai Tai: “Maita’I” is the Tahitian word for “good,” and it served Don Draper well when, in season 1, he is currying favor from Rachel Menken of Menken’s Department Store. Don fumbled badly at their first meeting assuming Rachel was a lowly secretary instead of a client, and he meets her for drinks to make amends. Menken knocks back several Mai Tai’s while Don sticks to his Old Fashioned. “That's quite a drink,” says Don – perhaps baffled by the tropical fruit and the cheesy Tiki glass, if not Rachel herself. Tiki Culture began in 1934 when two booze pioneers opened bars almost simultaneously: Don The Beachcomber in Hollywood, and “Trader Vic’s” in Oakland. Whoever came up with the Mai Tai is up to you. At its best the Mai Tai is a seamless blend of rum, tropical fruits and brown spices. My favorite Mai Tia was found in Honolulu:Boozehoundz's Mai Tai

Manhattan: This is the ultimate power drink of the show, and is still a favorite today. After her breakup with Mark in season 4, Peggy heads off to a bar with Don to drown her sorrows. Don of course covets his Manhattan in this episode and throughout the show. New York’s Manhattan Club claims that in 1874 at a party hosted by Winston Churchill’s mother, Lady Randolph Churchill, the cocktail came to be. Certainly more myth than fact, the Manhattan is nonetheless a masculine expression of confidence. It’s a classic mix; an angular drink with earthiness from the bourbon and sweet and smooth from the vermouth.

Martini: The liquid lunches favored by Don and his colleagues are often heavy on the martinis - a clear drink made of vodka or gin with a splash of vermouth. Roger Sterling tends to favor them as well, and no wonder, they are a classic American drink, and of course James Bond orders them in each 007 film, “shaken, not stirred.” Where martinis came from is unclear but the popular story goes that a miner walked into a bar and asked for a special drink to celebrate a gold strike during the California gold rush. The bartender threw together what he had on hand and called it a Martinez, after the town where the bar was located. Either way June 19th is National Martini Day, one of the few cocktails to have its own national recognition.

Mint Julip: The women of Mad Men drink too, and Betty knows her stuff when it comes to cocktails. In season 1 she makes a tray of mint juleps for the adults at her daughter Sally's birthday party, a much better amusement option than hiring a clown. The mint-and-bourbon based concoction hails from the South and first appears in print in 1803. Traditionally served in a silver or pewter cup, the mint julep as we now know it became the official drink of the Kentucky Derby in 1938 and featuring, you guessed it, Kentucky bourbon. Routinely 120,000 are consumed during the Derby. It’s cool and easy to drink, light and refreshing.

Old Fashioned: The iconic cocktail of the show, it appears in the first scene of the first episode of season 1, and we learn its name before we even learn Don Draper’s name.

Don sits in a smoky bar brainstorming ideas for a Lucky Strike campaign. “Do this again – Old Fashioned, please,” he tells the waiter. And thus begins the cocktail culture on Mad Men. As with virtually every cocktail on this list its origins are suspect, but the unifying theme is that mixologists (they were called bartenders back then) were getting fancy with mixing drinks, a smarmy grin on their faces as they attempted to dazzle the neophytes, like Tom Cruise (ick) in the film Cocktail. Purists wanted a return to the old fashioned way of making drinks, and the Old Fashioned took its rightful place in the pantheon of cocktails.

Tom Collins: In season 2, Draper instructs his daughter, Sally, on the art of mixing a Tom Collins for him and his neighbor Carlton Hanson. “Okay, you don’t smash the cherry on that. Just plop it in at the end. Try to keep it in the top of the glass.” Don routinely was fast and loose with his mixing of cocktails and, errant parenting aside, the Tom Collins is usually described as the perfect summertime drink because of its gorgeous simplicity and refreshing taste. It got its name from, literally, “the great Tom Collins hoax of 1874,” – an immature prank whereby a person went to a bar and told a patron that someone named Tom Collins was talking trash about him. The patron would then go looking for Tom. It didn’t take long for someone to name a drink after the non-existent Mr. Collins.

Whiskey Sour: When Ted, Peggy, and Pete were having dinner and drinks after their meeting with Ocean Spray (itself an oft used ingredient in many cocktails), Peggy says, “Could you get me another Whiskey Sour?” Pete nobly responds, "Maybe I'll switch to Whiskey Sours,” in hopes of impressing Peggy. The whiskey sour recipe was first published in a bartender’s book in 1862 though it is believed to have been around long before that when the adding of anything sour into a drink was more commonplace, perhaps helped fight scurvy and was probably a riff on punch. The potent lemon subdues the whiskey creating a juxtaposition of wood and citrus.

The author with Brandi Boles, beverage Director at Tom Bergin's and the 10 drinks

 (NOTE: The original version of this article (with recipes) first appeared in The Hollywood Reporter)