Old Tom Gin
Old Tom is a lightly sweetened style of gin, rounder and softer than London Dry, and the gin many nineteenth-century recipes were written for. Modern Old Toms vary considerably — some are sweetened, some get their roundness from botanicals or barrel ageing instead — so the style is a family resemblance rather than a fixed recipe.
Common uses
- the historically correct gin for the Martinez, Tom Collins and Tuxedo
- softens stirred gin drinks
Buying & storage
Keeps more or less indefinitely: Alcohol is preserving it. An open bottle keeps for a very long time, though aromatics do fade slowly.
Buying: taste before relying on it in a recipe: sweetness ranges from barely there to noticeably sugared
Storage: keeps indefinitely, store upright away from light
By the numbers
How cocktails use Old Tom Gin
Counted from the 2 published CocktailHQ recipes that include it. Measures are per serve.
Taste, on a 0–5 scale
The same scores CocktailHQ uses to judge whether a swap keeps a drink balanced.
- Sweetness
- 2
- Acidity
- 0
- Bitterness
- 1
- Intensity
- 3
Used in fewer than 3 recipes, so no technique split or partner list is drawn — a pattern needs more drinks than this.
In depth
Understanding old tom gin
How it is made, where it comes from, what it pairs with, and how it behaves in an alcohol-free drink.
Origin
An eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English gin style, revived by several distillers since the 2000s.
Recipes
Cocktails containing this ingredient
Swap it
Possible substitutions
Explore