A drink composed of gin, lemon, and other ingredients. The invention of it has been attributed to John Collins, a waiter at Limmer’s Hotel (now extinct) in London; but it does not appear that he was exercising his occupation as early as 1800, and the word is no doubt of American origin. See Notes and Queries, 6 S. ii. 444, Dec. 4, 1880.
1800. [They] were sitting in a cellar kitchen in Grubbstreet, regaling themselves in drinking gin sling and smoking segars.—Mass. Spy, July 9.
1802. The men of Newengland pass their evenings by their own firesides. Their breakfasts are not of whiskey julep, nor of gin sling; but of tea and coffee.—Id., Aug. 4: from the Newport (R.I.) Mercury.
1839. Punch, gin slings, cocktails, mint julips, besides many other compounds, to name which nothing but the luxuriance of American-English could invent a word.—Marryat, ‘Diary in America,’ i. 105. (N.E.D.)
1843. One of the grand general committee on drinking gin-slings and segar-smoking.—Cornelius Mathews, ‘Writings,’ p. 44.
1861. A cabin where the wayworn traveler may regale himself with a “brandy smash” or a “gin sling.”—Letter to Oregon Argus, Nov. 2.
