Tom and Jerry (mixed drink)

Tom and Jerry is the name for an alcoholic hot drink, which belongs to the category of eggnogs. In the United States it is traditionally drunk at Christmas or New Year's Day. Occupied it since the 19th century.

The main ingredients include a beaten egg yolks, stiffly whipped egg whites, brandy and rum and hot milk or hot water. In addition, usually sugar, and several spices such as allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. In German-speaking one would describe the drink as a variant of eggnog. The drink is drunk hot.

For the authorship of the recipe, there are different information. For one thing, Jerry Thomas is attributed to a U.S. bartenders and restaurateurs, who claimed during his lifetime, the drink invented in 1847 as a young man in San Francisco and to have named after its two mice; he published it in his 1862 published standard work How to Mix Drinks, or the Bon Vivant 's Companion. According to another version the drink goes back to Pierce Egan, the author of a bitingly humorous description of big city life of London, entitled Tom and Jerry, or Life in London, is said to have invented it back in the 1820s.

The author Damon Runyon (1880-1946) mentioned the drink in his short story Dancing Dan 's Christmas: " This hot Tom and Jerry is a traditional drink, which by all in this country Christmas is celebrated, and it is so popular, in fact, that many people think Christmas had only been invented in order to have an excuse to drink Tom and Jerry (...) ".