Old Tom Gin

Old Tom Gin is a creature of history and mystery now facing a possible resurgence in popularity thanks to the craft cocktail movement. This article will examine some of the available information in the hope of identifying just what Old Tom Gin is for the serious cocktailian. Then it will examine some half-dozen Old Tom Gins that I have tried, in light of our discoveries and deductions.

I encourage you to Google "Old Tom Gin" and to research the little bit about it on Wikipedia. That article has a lot of problems! Be equal parts skeptical and curious. You will find some inconsistencies, and many claims founded only on third-hand tradition or marketing blurbs.

In broad strokes, the history of gin goes like this:

1. Genever is developed in the Netherlands in the 16th century as a tincture of juniper, a pharmaceutical tonic. As a tincture, it's a high-alcohol product.
2. English soldiers on the continent learn of Dutch Courage and bring the news home with them. People in England learn that they can get drunk on the stuff much faster and cheaper than on ale, cider, or wine.  
3. By the early 1700s, the Gin Craze strikes England, with devastating consequences. 
4. The British government takes action to control the production of gin. A draconian act in 1736 has many of the bad effects of the US Volstead Act (Prohibition), resulting in illegal distilling.
5. A better-reasoned act in 1751 loosens the rules and makes them more enforceable. At this time all gins are still distilled in pot stills, much like those used by artisan distillers today. The only other standard is juniper in alcohol, but some are sweetened, many are flavored with turpentine or distilled with sulphuric acid, all to get popular flavors for their local markets.
6. In 1769, Alexander Gordon builds his Southwark distillery and introduces London Dry Gin. It is very popular, notably with the Royal Navy.
7. By the late 1820s, the column still is developed. Tanqueray and other London Dry Gins start to appear. These have a cleaner, drier flavor than the older-style pot-still gins.
8. By the mid-19th century, Gin Palaces had sprung up in England. The market for consistently-produced high-quality gin enabled the growth of the distillers now known for their London Dry Gins. 

I'll stop the history here, with a mass market for consistent quality gin. Now let's look at some of the current information available about Old Tom Gin, then we'll go back and match up those claims to the known history.

It is important to note that most of the information available comes from gin distillers, cocktail writers (who may have some disclosed or undisclosed relationship to a distiller), and from books written in recent years, informed by the interests of the classic cocktail renaissance. Much of this information has a commerical agenda behind it, or was written without a concern for accurate history.

My hypothesis is simply that the emergence of London Dry Gin in 1769 and then its surging popularity in succeeding decades saw many other local gins losing market share and vanishing from the market. Some of these were lamented by fans who could no longer get them.

I suspect that Old Tom Gin became the common term for what people remembered as old-style gin. In some places, the lamented gin was a sweetened variety, in others it had one or another interesting "botanicals" (turpentine?), or a higher (or lower) proof, or barrel-aging, or any number of other characteristics. 

"Common knowledge" about Old Tom Gin:

• Old Tom Gin is sweet: Hayman's is, for sure. Maybe many Old Tom Gins were sweet, but there is no evidence that sweetness was a required characteristic of the style - there were no standards.
• Old Tom Gin was named for the sign of the tom cat at pubs that would sell illicit gin: maybe in some cases, but this is the sort of romantic story that marketeers love. There is no evidence that all sellers with the sign of the tomcat sold the same type of illicit gin. It's a great story but it doesn't help us learn what the gin tasted like.
• Old Tom Gin is "the missing link" between Genever and London Dry Gin: You could see it that way, but there was no one maker or brand of Old Tom Gin; there were many variations. 

I think it's most accurate to say that gin passed through a chaotic "anything goes" period until market forces and the Crown's desire for control forced a shakeout that ended many local brands of Old Tom and other gins. Old Tom had no single formula, no single identity except what was decided upon by each distiller that produced an Old Tom Gin to their own recipes.

Today, as then, some distillers are producing Old Tom Gins, based on actual or fanciful old family recipes. They're not wrong to call theirs an Old Tom style gin, but it would be wrong for any one distiller to claim the authentic recipe for Old Tom Gin.

So if you want to try your hand at some cocktails using Old Tom Gin, you have some research to do. I think it's a sure bet that we won't see the turpentine-flavored varieties on the bar at your favorite hipster gin mill, but the currently available versions have significant differences. Try a few, and if you don't like one, don't think you have tried Old Tom Gin! Try another. They're all different, and that much is historically accurate.