Tonight the Dale/David Project tackles the Tom & Jerry, a labor-intensive but seasonally appropriate cocktail that dates back to the early part of the 19th century. This weekend is the second installment of the Oyster Club, and the location is the renowned Charles Moore House. I am doing two cocktails for the event: a Moore House Punch, which is yet to be developed; and a Zhi Tea Tom & Jerry, a variation on the classic cold-weather warmer, made with Zhi tea instead of hot water, and combined with rum & brandy and a 'batter' of eggs, sugar and spices. Zhi is a local tea company and one of the sponsors of Saturday's festivities.

The first step in the Tom & Jerry process is to beat the egg yolks until they are "watery", meanwhile stirring in a substantial amount of sugar

The Tom & Jerry is widely (and falsely) attributed to "Professor" Jerry Thomas, author of one of the very first cocktail manuals. Although Thomas did not create the drink, "he certainly did more than any other man to promote it," according to David Wondrich in Imbibe!, his award-winning biography of Thomas. Wondrich explains that Thomas told and re-told the story of his "creation" of the drink ca 1847 so many times that he likely believed it by the end of his life. In reality, there are written records of a drink called "Tom and Jerry", consisting of baking soda, eggs, sugar, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, and rum, dating as far back as the 1820's & 30's.

My arm was tired enough from the yolks that when it came time to beat the whites, I exercised my right to use the mixer.

The cocktail was prominent enough by the 1880's that every bar "worth wrecking with a hatchet would get down the china Tom & Jerry bowl and the little 'shaving mugs' that went with it." (A quick Ebay search will come up with dozens of hits for these sets) Unfortunately the drink waned in popularity by the turn of the century and is rarely seen these days. Indeed everyone whom I mentioned this to thought I was somehow referring to the cartoon.

When the whites are stiff, fold them into the yolks/spices/rum mixture until they achieve the consistency of a smooth batter

For the oyster club we decided to do a Tom & Jerry but instead of heating it with water, we would use Zhi Tea. They have a catalog of what must be a hundred or more teas, so I asked owner Jeffery "Doctor Oolong" Lorien to make some suggestions. After tasting the drink with several of his suggestions, my tasting panel arrived at Sweet Desert Delight, a rooibos-based tea flavored with cinnamon, anise pods, cacao nibs, coconut, stevia leaf, and safflowers.

(l-r) Tipsy, Mary Louise Butters, Jenna . The tasting panel decided on the Sweet Desert Delight.

To make each cup, you portion a couple of tablespoons of batter into the cup, add rum and brandy, and top with hot water (or in this case, hot tea)

Now we just hope that the weather cools off in time for the event on Saturday, though in reality we know it will be in the 80's and nobody will want our laboriously prepared hot drink.