Taste of Life: When lemonade and ‘John Collins’ stirred up spirits of European soldiers
During the hot summer afternoons, cool drinks like lemonade, mineral water, ginger ale, and root beer could either be made at home or purchased commercially bottled from grocers or druggists. Lemonade was many times the first choice to drink
On April 6, 2020, Captain Sir Thomas Moore, a British Army Veteran, at the age of 99, began to walk a hundred lengths of his garden in aid of NHS Charities Together, to raise £1,000 by his 100th birthday. In the 24-day course of his fundraising, he made many media appearances and became a popular household name in the UK, attracting over 1.5 million individual donations.
Moore had served in India and the Burma campaign during the Second World War. In his autobiography “Tomorrow will be a good day”, he writes about the days he spent in Poona. He had arrived in Poona in October 1941 and was stationed at the Kirkee Royal Artillery barracks. There were five hundred men in his battalion. He, like other officers, was given an airy bungalow around a central courtyard that housed the Officers’ Mess.
Moore shared his room with three other officers and they each had an Indian bearer. “The food was good too, as there was a proper cookhouse with Army cooks so there was meat, potatoes, and vegetables and no upset tummies”, he writes in his autobiography. He taught his cook to make porridge for breakfast, with plenty of creamy milk and lots of sugar. But he was disappointed by the rice pudding which was “nothing like Granny Fanny’s – just a stodgy mess with a smear of something that called itself jam”. He was introduced to curry for the first time and many of the Anglo-Indian dishes that were popular at the time, such as kedgeree.
In Kirkee, like many other European soldiers, he was introduced to a “sundowner” favoured by the Raj that he would eventually become quite partial to. It was called a John Collins (sibling to the better-known Tom Collins) and was really just a gin lemonade made with fresh lemon juice and sugar syrup. It was extremely refreshing. Moore and his mates thought they were all being a bit posh drinking it.
The seemingly endless supply of gin came from Philip Lloyd, their Cambridge-educated Army padre. The lemonade would be made in the army kitchen or sourced from the bazaar.
During the hot summer afternoons, cool drinks like lemonade, mineral water, ginger ale, and root beer could either be made at home or purchased commercially bottled from grocers or druggists. Lemonade was many times the first choice to drink. Gentlemen lay back full length in basket-chairs under large trees in their courtyard, lit cigars and called for “chhota pegs” (whisky or brandy) or a John Collins. Ladies sipped lemonade and looked forward to iced tea at the Club.
In the early nineteenth century, before the cities of Bombay and Poona had better water supply, Europeans had to drink water from wells and tanks, which a contemporary record declares “tasted like a red herring”. It was Henry Rogers who decided to change this. He was one of the first chemists to settle in Bombay and started the business of aerated water in a very modest establishment on Forbes Street, in 1837. With the thirsty Englishman, the new products naturally caught on rapidly, but Rogers had some trouble raising equal enthusiasm among the wealthy Indians. He succeeded gradually, however, and expanded his business within a few years. He was the first to sell bottled lemonade in Poona.
In the 1860s, a novel French dining custom, déjeuner a la fourchette, had come into vogue in the Bombay Presidency. The rich and famous Europeans and Parsees in Bombay and Poona assembled at about one o’clock and partook of coffee and chocolate, light dishes of meat, ice cream and confectionery, with lemonade and French and German wines. This “breakfast-dinner” was remarkably similar to what we call today as brunch. Roger’s lemonade would come in handy on such occasions.
The craze for aerated water and lemonade made a few Indians sell the beverages in the bazaars. In 1883, Sadar Bazaar had nine soda water and lemonade sellers. They were mostly Hindus who lived in the Poona cantonment. Cursetjee and Sons, General Merchants and Agents, declared in 1900 that they were paying their “best attention” to the manufacture of aerated water. They claimed that their gingerade and lemonade were unsurpassed in purity and quality.
Several parliamentary papers and sanitation reports in the late nineteenth century mention that bottles of lemonade in the bazaars of Poona often contained sediment and that on keeping them they went bad and smelled. Enteric infections, hence, were many a time attributed to bazaar-manufactured mineral waters. As a result, bottled lemonade lost its charm.
The brunches then had made way for an interesting outdoor activity. For the hot-weather picnics in Poona, lemon and strawberry shortcakes became popular for a while in the early 1900s. The gardens in and around the Poona and Kirkee cantonments were favoured venues for summer “pic-nics”. The menu would usually include cucumber sandwiches, cold roast chicken, hard-boiled eggs, buttered rolls, jellies, watermelon and muskmelon, chocolate cake, ice cream, and, of course, lemonade. Ice was packed around the wooden freezer and then the whole instrument was wrapped in a wet, heavy carpet to keep the ice cream from melting. The lemonade would be freshly made since by then, it was believed, that only children of “lazy mothers” drank a bottled beverage.
The recipe for lemonade was quite simple: Take the rind of 8 lemons; juice of 12 lemons; 2 lbs. of loaf sugar; 1 gallon of boiling water; rub the rinds of 8 lemons on the sugar until it has absorbed all the oil from them, and put it with the remainder of the sugar into a jug; add the lemon juice and pour the boiling water over the whole. When the sugar is dissolved, strain the lemonade through a piece of muslin, and when cool, it will be ready for use. The lemonade will be much improved by having the whites of 4 eggs beaten up with it.
Lonavala at that time was known for its fresh lemonade. Europeans living in Poona and Khandala would make a trip to the village for lemonade, soda, and butter.
Most battalions in late nineteenth-century India had a library, a reading room, and a club. The club would usually have bagatelle boards, draught, backgammon, chess boards, dominoes etc. It would also have a coffee shop at which tea, coffee, fruit, bread, meat, tobacco, and other refreshments could be obtained. Bottled lemonade was frowned upon by the officers. Hence, cooks would be busy making lemonade every morning and evening during the summer. Certain Indian cooks were known to specialise in the John Collins and they were naturally sought after.
The connoisseurs hoped that restaurateurs, bartenders and caterers would agree on what the cocktail was to be perpetually named. One barkeeper called it John Collins – another Tom Collins. There were also Harry Collins and Fred Collins, all members of the same family.
Harry Johnson, in his Bartenders’ Manual, published in 1876, gave the following recipe for the John Collins: ¾ table-spoonful of sugar; 2 or 3 dashes of lemon juice; 2 dashes of lime juice; 4 or 5 small lumps of ice; 1 wine glass full of Holland gin; pour in a bottle of plain soda, mix up well, remove the ice and serve. Care must be taken not to let the foam of the soda water run over the glass while pouring it in. This drink must be taken as soon as mixed, or it will lose its flavour.
Moore was in Kirkee again in 2007. He visited the War Cemetery and recognised some names engraved on the Portland stones. There were many he did not know. He saluted them all and had a glassful of John Collins in honour of the soldiers who lost their lives in the war.
Moore passed away in 2021 after being treated for pneumonia and Covid-19.
Chinmay Damle is a research scientist and food enthusiast. He writes here on Pune’s food culture. He can be contacted at chinmay.damle@gmail.com
