<P> Confusion over the cocktail's origins continued as American writer Charles Montgomery Skinner noted in 1898 that the Tom Collins had made its way to the "American Bars" in England, France, and Germany, where the American invention stimulated curiosity in Europe and served as a reflection of American art . </P> <P> As time passed, interest in the Tom Collins diminished and its origins became lost . Early on during the 1920s Prohibition in the United States, the American journalist and student of American English H.L. Mencken said: </P> <P> The origin of the...Tom - Collins...remains to be established; the historians of alcoholism, like the philologists, have neglected them . But the essentially American character of (this and other drinks) is obvious, despite the fact that a number have gone over into English . The English, in naming their drinks, commonly display a far more limited imagination . Seeking a name, for example, for a mixture of whiskey and soda - water, the best they could achieve was whiskey - and - soda . The Americans, introduced to the same drink, at once gave it the far more original name of high - ball . </P> <P> A drink known as a Jim Collins has existed since the 1860s at the very least and is believed to have originated with a headwaiter of that name who worked at Limmer's Old House in Conduit Street in Mayfair, which was a popular London hotel and coffee house around 1790--1817 . </P>

Where did the collins glass get its name from