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John Collins

Whiskey, lemon and sugar lengthened with soda — the Tom Collins' whiskey-based older relative.

Difficulty
easy
Prep time
5 min
Strength
8% ABV
Glassware
Collins glass
Base
whisky
Serves
1

Ingredients

  • Bourbon or other whiskey
    50ml
  • Fresh lemon juice
    25ml
  • Simple syrup
    20ml
  • Soda water

    To top

    90ml

Garnish: Lemon wheel, Maraschino cherry

Scale for a party

Method

  1. Add the whiskey, lemon juice and simple syrup to a shaker with ice.
  2. Shake for 10 seconds until chilled.
  3. Strain into an ice-filled Collins glass.
  4. Top with soda water and stir once, gently.
  5. Garnish with a lemon wheel and a maraschino cherry.

Equipment

Don't have everything? Here's what works instead.

  • Cocktail shaker

    Household swap: A clean jar with a tight-fitting lid.

  • Hawthorne strainer

    Household swap: A slotted spoon held over the glass while you pour.

Missing an ingredient?

Each swap below says what it changes and how to correct for it, so you can decide whether you are making this drink or a neighbouring one.

  • Instead of Bourbon

    Best substitute: Rye Whisky

    This is the base in this drink.

    Flavour impact: Gives a spicier, drier Collins with less caramel sweetness.

    What changes

    Expect less sweetness, more bitterness and more strength. Still a good drink, and a slightly different one.

    Sweetness ↓
    Less sweetness leaves the acid and the spirit more exposed, so the drink will taste sharper and drier than it should.
    Bitterness ↑
    Bitterness builds across a drink rather than announcing itself, so this will read as a longer, drier finish.
    Strength ↑
    Rye Whisky is 45% ABV against 40%. A stronger bottle raises the alcohol in the finished drink and, with it, the perceived dryness and heat.
    Character
    you lose sweet, caramel, vanilla and oaky, and you gain spicy, dry, peppery and assertive. Numbers can't see this: two ingredients can be identically sour and still smell nothing alike.

    To correct for it

    • Add a little more syrup, a small amount at a time, until the edges come back together.
    • Pour slightly less, or lengthen the drink a little, and let the sweetness catch up.
    • Pour a little less, or add slightly more dilution, to land where the recipe intended.
    High confidenceA very common and widely accepted whiskey swap.Shifts the drink

  • Instead of Simple Syrup

    Best substitute: Honey Syrup

    This is the sweet element in this drink.

    Flavour impact: Adds a floral, earthy depth in place of simple syrup's clean neutrality.

    What changes

    Expect more intensity. Still a good drink, and a slightly different one.

    Intensity ↑
    A more intensely flavoured ingredient will start to dominate the components around it.
    Character
    Both are sweet, and you lose neutral and smooth, and you gain floral, earthy and rich. Numbers can't see this: two ingredients can be identically sour and still smell nothing alike.

    To correct for it

    • Scale it back by a third and let the other ingredients hold their share.
    Moderate confidenceA reasonable, well-understood sweetener swap that shifts the drink toward a Gold Rush Collins.Shifts the drinkBecomes a variation

Make it better

  • Chill the glass beforehand so the drink stays cold and fizzy for as long as possible.
  • Fresh lemon juice makes a real difference — this drink is mostly citrus and fizz, and bottled juice tastes noticeably flatter.
  • Top with soda gently and just before serving to keep as much carbonation as possible.
  • Shake hard for 12-15 seconds with plenty of ice — a proper shake chills and dilutes the drink in one step.

Rescue this drink

Flat
Top with fresh soda water again just before serving — it loses fizz fast once stirred.
Too sour
Add 5–10ml more simple syrup and stir gently.
Too sweet
Add a touch more lemon juice to sharpen the balance.
Watery
Use fewer, larger ice cubes in the serving glass rather than a lot of small ones.
Tastes thin, with no weight to itgeneral guidance
A short shaken drink with nothing rich in it depends on sugar and dilution for body. Try a slightly richer syrup — two parts sugar to one of water rather than equal parts — which adds weight without adding much more sweetness. Egg white or aquafaba does the same job more dramatically, and turns it into a sour.
It foams over when the mixer goes ingeneral guidance
Something in the glass is nucleating the carbonation — usually fresh ice with frost on it, or a sugary residue on the side. Pour the mixer slowly down the inside of the glass onto a spoon rather than onto the ice, and add it last. A drink built the other way round loses most of its fizz before it reaches the table.
Served too warmgeneral guidance
Chill the glass, ice and every ingredient ahead of time — a warm pour is the fastest way to lose a cold drink's balance. For one serving, there's no real fix beyond rebuilding it properly chilled; for a batch, keep everything refrigerated until the moment of serving and add ice last.
Under-diluted (tastes harsh or too concentrated)general guidance
For one serving, stir in a few drops of chilled water to open it up. For a batch, extend the shake time slightly on the next round.
No cocktail shakergeneral guidance
A clean jar with a tight-fitting lid.
No cocktail strainergeneral guidance
A slotted spoon held over the glass while you pour.

Make ahead & storage

Batch the base, finish at serving

Batch the 2 stable components days ahead and add fresh lemon juice and soda water when you pour.

Add about 27% water to the batch to replace what the ice would otherwise contribute, or it will pour noticeably harsher than a fresh one.

Fresh lemon juice:
Fresh citrus loses its aroma within hours and turns dull. Squeeze it on the day.
Soda water:
Carbonated — it goes flat in a bottle, and there is no way to put the fizz back.

What it tastes like

The taste, and what drives it

off-dry, sharp, very light, sparkling — a sour-structured drink served long, over ice.

Off-dry

Dry → Sweet

Sweetened enough to take the edge off without reading as a sweet drink.

What drives it: Simple syrup — carries the most sugar into the glass.

Sharp

Soft → Sharp

Properly sharp. This is the axis the drink is built on.

What drives it: Fresh lemon juice — supplies the acidity.

Very light

Light → Rich

Almost weightless in the mouth — closer to a long soft drink than to a sipper.

What drives it: Bourbon or other whiskey — adds most of the weight.

Sparkling

Still → Sparkling

Carbonated, which lifts the aromatics and makes the drink taste drier than its sugar content alone would suggest.

What drives it: Soda water — carries the carbonation.

Moderate

Delicate → Bold

Moderate: assertive enough to hold its own, mild enough for a second.

What drives it: Bourbon or other whiskey — is the most concentrated thing in the glass.

What you smell first

  • Citrus peelLeads

    From Fresh lemon juice, Lemon wheel

  • Vanilla

    From Bourbon or other whiskey

  • Oak

    From Bourbon or other whiskey

  • Caramel and molasses

    From Bourbon or other whiskey

Every aroma here comes from the liquid itself; nothing is layered on top.

How it was worked out

Each reading comes from the recipe's own recorded taste scores combined with what each ingredient contributes, weighted by how much of it is in the glass. Almost everything in this drink has detailed ingredient data behind it.

How balance actually works →

If it isn't right

What goes wrong with this drink, and why

Only the faults this particular recipe is actually prone to — each with the likely cause, the adjustment, and what the adjustment costs you.

  • It's too sweet

    Likely cause
    Simple syrup is carrying the sugar here, and it is the easiest thing in the drink to over-pour — syrup clings to a jigger and a "splash" is rarely the same twice.
    What to change
    Cut simple syrup by about a third and rebuild. If it is already made, a squeeze of citrus is faster than starting again.
    What that does
    The drink will read sharper as well as less sweet, because the acid stops being balanced. That is usually the intention, but it is a bigger change than it sounds.

  • It's too sour

    Likely cause
    Fresh lemon juice varies more than any other ingredient in the drink. Limes differ by weeks of ripeness, and a sharp one can be half again as acidic as a mild one at the same measure.
    What to change
    Add sweetener a few millilitres at a time rather than diluting — you are correcting a ratio, not a concentration.
    What that does
    Sourness recedes and the drink gains a little weight. Overshoot and you will be reading the too-sweet entry above instead.

  • It tastes weak

    Likely cause
    Usually dilution rather than measurement: shaking adds water as it chills, and wet or small ice adds far more of it than cold, large ice does.
    What to change
    Use larger, colder ice and work faster. Adding more spirit fixes the symptom and unbalances everything else.
    What that does
    The drink gains definition without gaining sugar. It will also read as slightly sharper, which is what 'more presence' usually means in practice.

  • It's gone flat

    Likely cause
    Soda water loses gas to warmth, to agitation and to anything it can nucleate against — pulp, sugar crystals, a dry glass.
    What to change
    Chill the mixer properly, add it last, pour it against the inside wall of the glass, and stir once at most.
    What that does
    The bubbles last, which also makes the drink taste drier — carbonation contributes a real acidity of its own on top of the lift.

  • It's watery

    Likely cause
    Shaking adds water while it chills, and the two cannot be separated. Wet ice from a freezer door, or small cubes, will over-dilute before the drink is properly cold.
    What to change
    Use bigger, drier, colder ice and stop sooner. Chilling the glass first buys you time you would otherwise spend diluting.
    What that does
    More flavour concentration at the same temperature. Under-dilute instead and the drink will taste harsh — this is a target, not a direction.

  • It doesn't smell of anything

    Likely cause
    This drink's aroma comes from citrus peel and vanilla, carried in the liquid. Serving it too cold suppresses that: volatile compounds do not leave a very cold drink.
    What to change
    Let it sit for a minute before drinking, and use a glass that narrows towards the rim to concentrate what does escape.
    What that does
    More of the aroma escapes and the drink reads as more intense. The cost is temperature: a drink left to warm also dilutes faster, so this is a trade against how long it stays right.

  • It tastes one-dimensional

    Likely cause
    With 4 components there is nowhere for complexity to hide — a sour-structured drink is exposed by design, so a dull one is usually a dull ingredient rather than a missing step.
    What to change
    Change the quality of what is there before adding anything new: fresh citrus rather than bottled, a better base bottle, a dash of bitters. Bitters add layers at a scale nothing else matches.
    What that does
    More going on at the same strength and sweetness. Adding a whole extra ingredient instead usually produces a muddier drink rather than a deeper one.

Taste profile

Sweetness
2/5
Sourness
3/5
Bitterness
0/5
Strength
2/5
Fruitiness
1/5
Freshness
4/5
Creaminess
0/5
Smokiness
0/5

Nutrition & alcohol

Estimate onlyBased on a standard 50ml whiskey pour at 40% ABV; sweetness varies with how much simple syrup is used.
Calories
167 kcal
Sugar
14 g
Carbohydrates
15 g
Alcohol units (UK)
2
US standard drinks
1.13
ABV
8%
Serving size
250 ml
Show calculation assumptions

Source: Calculated from standard measures

Calorie breakdown: ~110 kcal from alcohol, ~57 kcal from sugar and mixers.

Likely range: 125–209 kcal, reflecting the confidence level above — not a lab-measured figure.

Assumes 50ml bourbon at 40% ABV, 25ml fresh lemon juice, 20ml simple syrup and 90ml soda water, served over a full glass of ice.

These figures are estimates, not laboratory measurements — individual tolerance to alcohol varies. See our responsible drinking guidance.

Variations

  • Mint John Collins

    Muddle a few mint leaves with the lemon juice before shaking for a herbal lift.

  • Peach Collins

    Add 15ml peach purée to the shaker for a fruitier, rounder version.

What kind of drink this is

The structure behind the recipe

A shaken build: a sour-structured whisky-based drink, served long, over ice — sparkling in the mouth.

Sour-structured

Something sour and something sweet held in balance over a base — the structure behind the whole sour family and everything descended from it.

  • Base

    Bourbon or other whiskey

  • Sour element

    Fresh lemon juice

  • Sweet element

    Simple syrup

  • Lengthener

    Soda water

Technique

shaken

Ice is thrown against the liquid and against itself, chipping fragments off and driving air through the mix. Chilling, dilution and aeration all happen at once and cannot be separated.

A lighter, briefly frothy body and a cloudy appearance that settles as it stands. The aeration blunts alcoholic heat, which is why a shaken drink tastes softer than a stirred one of the same strength.

What it ruins: Clarity, and any carbonation. A shaken spirits-only drink arrives cloudy with ice shards floating in it, and shaking anything fizzy is the one rule with no exceptions.

Everything about shaking →How the technique works →

Dilution

During mixing, then strained

Water from ice typically makes up around 30% of the finished drink for a shaken build (commonly 25–35%). Dilution is an ingredient here, not a side effect.

Why dilution is an ingredient →

Served

Long, over ice

Collins glass · 250ml

Served on ice, so it keeps chilling in the glass. A larger, colder, slower drink than the same spirits served straight up.

Texture and aroma

Sparkling

Carbonation lifts aromatics and adds a slight acidity of its own, which is why a long drink can taste drier than its sugar content suggests.

No dedicated aromatic component — what you smell is the spirit itself, which is a deliberate choice in a drink this spare.

Where to go from here

Each of these is here because of something specific about this drink, not as a standard set of links.

Where it comes from

Origin and family

Origin of the John Collins

A 19th-century whiskey-based drink generally considered the predecessor to the now more famous gin-based Tom Collins.

1800s–1919Other pre-prohibition drinks →

On drinks history

Cocktail origin stories are frequently repeated and rarely evidenced. Our history section separates what is documented from what is folklore rather than picking whichever version reads best.

History and culture →

Try this next

Use up your ingredients

Bought a bottle just for this? Here's what else it's good for.

Related tools

Scale this for a party

Work out bottles, mixers, ice and total alcohol units for any number of guests.

Recipe confidence

The Collins family's exact history is debated — some modern sources treat 'John Collins' as simply a vodka-based Tom Collins, but the whiskey version presented here follows the older, more widely cited lineage.

Moderate confidence