Tom and Jerry, the 1862 Egg-Batter Hot Drink
Reader ratingsA spoonful of spiced egg batter, a wine-glass of brandy and boiling water, with nutmeg grated on top: the Tom and Jerry as Jerry Thomas’s 1862 bar book dealt it out.
- Recipe makes
- About 1 1/2 cups batter, enough for about 20 drinks
- Prep
- Total
The batter takes about 10 minutes to whisk. Each drink then takes a minute.
Tom and Jerry in a small glass mug, with the bowl of spiced egg batter behind it.
The story behind the recipe
A Tom and Jerry is a hot drink built on a batter: eggs beaten light with sugar and spice, a spoonful of it in each glass, then brandy and boiling water. Jerry Thomas printed it in How to Mix Drinks in 1862 as a bowl recipe “for the mixture,” five pounds of sugar to twelve eggs, with half a small glass of Jamaica rum and cinnamon, cloves and allspice. The whites go in beaten “to a stiff froth,” the yolks “until they are as thin as water,” and sugar until the whole “attains the consistence of a light batter.”
Dealt out to customers
The batter was made ahead and kept on the bar. Thomas’s instructions for serving are headed “To deal out Tom and Jerry to customers”: one tablespoonful in a small bar glass, a wine-glass of brandy, boiling water to fill, and nutmeg grated on top. Practiced barmen, he adds, used a mixed spirit of brandy, Jamaica rum and Santa Cruz rum kept ready in a bottle, and a teaspoon of cream of tartar or a little soda stopped the sugar sinking to the bottom of the bowl. He also notes that the drink “is sometimes called Copenhagen, and sometimes Jerry Thomas.”
Thirty years later it was still in the New York bartenders’ handbook. The Bartenders’ Association of New York put a Tom and Jerry in its 1895 handbook, stiffer in the batter and served with “boiling milk or water,” which opens the door to the Alcohol-Free Tom and Jerry.
Read more about this recipe
Making it today
The batter is the work. Beat the whites and the yolks separately, as Thomas says, then fold them together so the batter stays light. We use far less sugar than his bowl: five pounds to twelve eggs works out at nearly two cups for two eggs, which in our judgment would make a stiff paste; three-quarters of a cup gives a light batter closer to the one he describes. Use pasteurized eggs, since the batter is only warmed by the water.
Made with a wine-glass of brandy, the drink is about 18% alcohol, milder than Thomas’s whiskey toddy, which he made the same way, with whiskey, sugar and boiling water. His bar book and the men who wrote the others are in The Bartenders Who Wrote Down the Classic Cocktails. Thomas’s eggnogs, and the hot flips and possets of Britain, are in How Was Eggnog First Made?
174. Tom and Jerry.
(Use punch-bowl for the mixture.)
5 lbs. sugar. 12 eggs. ½ small glass of Jamaica rum. 1½ teaspoonful of ground cinnamon. ½ do. do. cloves. ½ do. do allspice.
Beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth, and the yolks until they are as thin as water, then mix together and add the spice and rum, thicken with sugar until the mixture attains the consistence of a light batter.
To deal out Tom and Jerry to customers:
Take a small bar glass, and to one table-spoonful of the above mixture, add one wine-glass of brandy, and fill the glass with boiling water, grate a little nutmeg on top.
Recipe makes: About 1 1/2 cups batter, enough for about 20 drinks
Ingredients
For About 1 1/2 cups batter, enough for about 20 drinks. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for About 1 1/2 cups batter, enough for about 20 drinks.
Batter
- Pasteurized eggs2
- Superfine sugar3/4 cup
- Jamaica rum1 tsp
- Ground cinnamon1/4 tsp
- Ground cloves1 pinch
- Ground allspice1 pinch
For each glass
- Batter1 tbsp
- Brandy2 fl oz
- Boiling water2 fl oz
- Whole nutmeg, for grating
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 2 pasteurized eggs
- 3/4 cup superfine sugar
- 1 tsp Jamaica rum
- 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 pinch ground cloves
- 1 pinch ground allspice
- 1 tbsp batter
- 2 fl oz brandy
- 2 fl oz boiling water
- Whole nutmeg, for grating
Equipment
2 wide bowls or basins
Whisk
Kettle
Small heatproof cups or glasses
Nutmeg grater
Instructions
Separate the pasteurized eggs. Whisk the whites until they hold stiff peaks.
In a second bowl, whisk the yolks until they are thin and pale.
Fold the yolks into the whites, then whisk in the Jamaica rum, ground cinnamon, ground cloves and ground allspice.
Add the superfine sugar a few spoonfuls at a time, whisking after each, until the mixture is a light, thick batter that holds a soft shape.
For each drink, warm a small heatproof glass with hot water and tip it out.
Put the batter in the glass, pour in the brandy and stir to loosen the batter.
Fill the glass with the boiling water, stirring as you pour, and grate a little nutmeg over the top. Serve at once.
Nutrition
165calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- About 1 1/2 cups batter, enough for about 20 drinks
- Servings
- 20
Roughly estimated from USDA FoodData Central values for 80-proof brandy, granulated sugar and whole egg, for one drink made with 1 tablespoon of batter.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
Thomas’s bowl was 12 eggs and 5 pounds of sugar. This batter is a sixth of his eggs. The glass ingredients are for one drink.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the batch.
Changes from the source: the batter is a sixth of Thomas’s twelve eggs, and the sugar is much less than his proportion, which would be nearly 2 cups for two eggs. The rum and spices are scaled from his bowl and rounded; a pinch is about 1/16 teaspoon. Pasteurized eggs, superfine sugar, warming the glass and stirring the batter loose with the brandy are ours.
Thomas does not say how big a “small glass” of rum is; we take it as a wine-glass, 2 fluid ounces by William Kitchiner’s reckoning of 1822, so half of it to twelve eggs is about 1 teaspoon for two. The wine-glass of brandy in each drink is 2 fl oz on the same measure. He gives no size for the small bar glass; we fill it with about 2 fl oz of boiling water.
Strength: 2 fl oz of 40% brandy is 0.8 fl oz of alcohol in about 4 1/2 fl oz of drink, so about 18%, before the batter’s trace of rum. For his bar mixture, use half brandy and a quarter each of Jamaica rum and Santa Cruz (Virgin Islands) rum in place of the brandy.
If the sugar sinks in the bowl, whisk in a pinch (about 1/8 teaspoon) of cream of tartar, Thomas’s own fix scaled down from his teaspoon for twelve eggs.
Storage
Keep the batter covered in the fridge and use it the same day. It slowly separates; whisk it again before serving.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; glassware, ice and timings need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
Jerry Thomas, How to Mix Drinks, or, The Bon-Vivant’s Companion (New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1862), No. 174, “Tom and Jerry”, pp. 69–70
Recipe details
- Drink family
- Hot Drinks
- Region
- American
- Era
- 19th century
- Source decade
- 1860s
- Difficulty
- Intermediate
- Occasion
- Christmas
- Season
- Winter