Wondrich points to the first appearance of a Tom and Jerry bowl in the New York Times, the recounting, on February 6, 1864, of a bar fight that ended in a death. It’s very possible that the Tom and Jerry bowl (most often ceramic, with the punch’s name painted on the side) was the first piece of barware made expressly for one specific drink. While cocktail historian David Wondrich has done deep research on the Tom and Jerry itself-debunking the notion that Jerry Thomas came up with the drink, a falsehood that Thomas propagated himself-the history of Tom and Jerry drinkware hasn’t been well-documented.
