Old Tom Gin
The lightly sweetened gin style that ruled American and British bars from roughly 1820 to 1900, faded as London Dry took over, and was effectively gone by World War II. When a pre-1900 cocktail recipe says gin, this is what it usually means.
What it is
Old Tom is a category, not a brand. The defining feature is light sweetening, traditionally with sugar added either before or after distillation, plus a richer botanical profile than London Dry. Modern Old Toms run between 40 and 47 percent ABV. Some, like Hayman's, add a small amount of sugar after distillation. Others, like Ransom from Oregon, use malted barley, an aged barrel rest, and a heavier-bodied base to produce a richer, hay-colored gin that almost looks like a young whiskey.
The name itself is contested. The most repeated story is that Old Tom referred to wooden plaques shaped like a black cat that hung outside London gin shops in the eighteenth century, where customers fed coins into a slot and gin poured from a tube under the cat's paw. David Wondrich is skeptical of the cat-vending-machine story but documents that Old Tom was a recognized name for sweetened gin by at least the 1810s.
Where it shows up
The signature drink is the Martinez, the cocktail almost everyone agrees is the immediate ancestor of the Martini. Old Tom, sweet vermouth, Maraschino, and Angostura or orange bitters. The Martinez first appears in print in O.H. Byron's 1884 The Modern Bartender's Guide, but the recipe was almost certainly older. Substituting London Dry in a Martinez gives you a different drink, drier and harsher, because the sugar in the Old Tom was doing real structural work.
Other places it appears: the Tom Collins, where the sweetened gin shifts the sugar balance and shortens the soda. The Improved Gin Cocktail in Jerry Thomas's 1862 How to Mix Drinks. Most pre-1900 gin sour and gin punch recipes. If a recipe written before 1910 calls for gin without specifying London Dry, the working assumption is Old Tom or a slightly sweetened genever.
The historical arc
Gin started as Dutch genever, a malty, juniper-flavored grain spirit aged in oak. When it crossed to England in the late 1600s with William of Orange, the English distillers stripped out most of the malt character and added more sugar to mask the rough column-still spirit available in cheap urban distilleries. By the 1740s the Gin Craze was at its peak. The Gin Acts of 1729 and 1751 were attempts to control what was effectively a public health crisis among the London poor.
Old Tom, the sweetened style, came out of this. By the 1820s, distillation technology had improved enough that the sugar was less about hiding flaws and more about defining the category. Old Tom was the gin Charles Dickens was drinking. It was the gin Jerry Thomas built his book around. It was what was on the back bar in the 1890s American Bar at the Savoy in London.
London Dry, the unsweetened style we know today, was a refinement that took advantage of the column still and a higher-quality neutral spirit. It started showing up in the 1830s and 1840s, but it did not take over the market until the early 1900s, when Prohibition in the US, World War I supply chains, and a shift in taste away from sweetness pushed the unsweetened style into the lead. By 1940 Old Tom was effectively extinct. Hayman's of England, who had been making gin since 1863, had stopped producing Old Tom by the 1930s.
The revival started around 2007, the same year Crème de Violette came back. Hayman's relaunched Hayman's Old Tom in 2007 using a recipe from the family archive. Ransom Spirits in Oregon released an Old Tom in 2009, developed in collaboration with cocktail historian David Wondrich, who was actively trying to recreate what Jerry Thomas would have used. Anchor Distilling in San Francisco released Anchor's Old Tom in 2009 as well. Within five years there were a dozen Old Toms on the US market.
Modern brands
- Hayman's Old Tom Gin (England, 41.4%). The standard. Sweetened post-distillation, light body, classic London juniper profile with the sugar pulling it sweet. Best for the Tom Collins and most British pre-1900 recipes.
- Ransom Old Tom Gin (Oregon, 44%). The most distinctive bottle. Malted barley base, barrel-aged, hay-colored, with a flavor closer to a young whiskey than to a modern gin. Best for the Martinez. Wondrich's pick.
- Anchor's Old Tom (California, 45%). Slightly sweet, citrus and star anise forward, more modern than Hayman's. Note: Anchor Distilling Company closed in 2024, so existing stock is what is left.
- Tanqueray Old Tom (London, 47.3%). A periodic limited release rather than a permanent line. Worth grabbing when you see it.
Modern substitutions
The honest substitution for Old Tom is London Dry plus a small amount of sugar, usually a quarter to a half teaspoon of simple syrup per drink. It gets you most of the way for a Martinez or a Tom Collins. You lose the heavier botanical profile and the malt notes that Ransom in particular has, but the structure of the cocktail comes back into balance.
Plymouth gin, which is sweeter and softer than London Dry, is closer to Old Tom than London Dry is and works better as an unmodified sub. Genever can also stand in, especially in a Martinez, since the malty backbone is closer to Ransom than London Dry is to anything.
Where to buy
Hayman's Old Tom is the easiest to find, available at most well-stocked liquor stores in the US and online for around twenty-five dollars. Ransom is a little harder, around forty dollars, and worth it for the Martinez. Anchor's stock is dwindling. Tanqueray Old Tom turns up on cocktail-bar back bars and at specialty retailers when Diageo decides to release a batch.
At a glance
| Category | Sweetened gin |
|---|---|
| Origin | England, by the 1810s |
| ABV | 40 to 47 percent |
| US gap | Roughly 1940 to 2007 |
| Returned via | Hayman's 2007, Ransom 2009 |
| Signature drink | Martinez (printed 1884) |
Cocktails to try
- Martinez · Old Tom, sweet vermouth, Maraschino, bitters. The proto-Martini.
- Tom Collins · Old Tom, lemon, sugar, soda. The drink the gin is named for, or vice versa.
- Improved Gin Cocktail · Old Tom, gum syrup, Maraschino, absinthe rinse, bitters. Jerry Thomas, 1862.
If a recipe written before 1910 says gin, it almost certainly means Old Tom, and the modern London Dry version is a different drink.
The Lost Cocktail Codex is a free PDF with the original Martinez, the Improved Gin Cocktail, the Tom Collins, and 47 other pre-Prohibition recipes hand-transcribed from five manuscripts. Drop your email below.