Brandy Collins

A long, refreshing fizz combining brandy with lemon, sugar, and sparkling water. The sophisticated brandy take on the Tom Collins.

The Brandy Collins applies the Collins template — spirit, lemon juice, sugar, soda water — to cognac or domestic brandy, producing a lighter, more refreshing expression of the spirit than any stirred or spirit-forward format provides. The Collins family traces its name to John Collins, a headwaiter at Limmer's Hotel on Conduit Street in London in the early 19th century. Limmer's was a fashionable establishment frequented by military officers and sporting figures, and Collins was known for a gin-based punch served in tall glasses that his customers found particularly appealing. The name transferred to the format itself as it spread through American bars, and the Collins became one of the most adaptable templates in 19th-century American bartending — applied to gin, whiskey, brandy, rum, and virtually every spirit in the bar. The Brandy Collins entered regular service in both American and European cocktail guides from the 1870s onward, and for brandy specifically it offered something the spirit-forward preparations could not: accessibility. Cognac's fruit and oak complexity is preserved in the Collins format without demanding the concentration of attention that a neat or lightly diluted pour requires, making the Brandy Collins an ideal warm-weather introduction to the spirit for drinkers unfamiliar with its character.