First, a confession…I have no idea if that’s the actual Singapore Sling they served during the Juniperlooza session at Tales of the Cocktail, but I’ll be damned if I care because:

1. I remember it being tasty and have notes to that effect…
2. While not the absolute hands-down best drink I had at TotC or during my time in New Orleans, that is the most awesome piece of ice I’ve seen in a a while. It’s like ice porn.¹

Now let’s be clear about this drink. If you’ve had one at a typical glorified-juice-stand bar recently it was probably made like this:

“Singapore Sling”

• 1/2 oz grenadine syrup
• 1 oz gin
• sweet & sour mix²
• club soda³
• 1/2 oz cherry brandy

Pour grenadine into the bottom of a collins glass, and fill with ice. Add gin, and almost-fill with equal parts of sweet and sour and chilled soda. Top with cherry brandy, and serve unstirred, garnished with a cherry. (courtesy (I use that term charitably) of drinksmixer.com)

The Singapore Sling is a venerable drink with a great heritage. And to have it reduced to the status of a Pat O’Brien’s Hurricane is sad and unfortunate. The Singapore Sling was developed at the Raffles Hotel’s bar in Singapore by one Mr. Ngiam Tong Boon sometime in the early 1910’s (though dates vary). Nowadays, however, in the name of commerce and no small amount of avarice the Raffles bar serves the neon-tastebane shown above⁴ . Simon Difford actually recounted⁵ how he flew to Singapore solely to have a Singapore Sling at its birthplace and came away dismayed, and much lighter in the wallet for such a terrible drink. He advises you don’t go.

I’ll take a moment to note that this drink, despite its “sling” moniker, has little to nothing to do with the slings made as progenitors of the “cocktail”. A classic sling is simply a blend of a spirit, water and some sugar and, if you’re lucky, a spot of ice. I can’t recommend these, but in Imbibe!… Wondrich tells us that with a bit of nutmeg they’re passable and curious study of pre-cocktail drinking. I’ll take his venerable word, one gin sling was enough to satisfy my curiosity and make me glad we discovered bitters, liqueurs and, well, everything else.

Singapore Sling

• 1 1/2 oz gin⁶
• 1/4 oz Cherry Heering
• 1/4 oz Gran Marnier
• 1/4 oz Benedictine
• 1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
• 2 oz pineapple juice
• 1 dash Angostura bitters

Add all ingredients in a mixing glass. Add ice an shake vigorously for 6-10 seconds. Strain into a tall glass with fresh ice. Garnish (usually with a pineapple flag)

This is tasty, almost tiki in style but with a tart and herbaceous back to it from the lemon juice and Benedictine, respectively. Now, there are endless variations of this drink, some of which use lime juice and more Heering, some which add orange bitters and muck about with proportions⁷ , and some which follow the Savoy example and simplify it to a matter of gin, lemon juice, cherry brandy, and soda water and call it a day. Here’s what I say, start with the above and adjust from there to taste. Dale DeGroff’s recipe is highly regarded, so in that direction you may find nirvana. To see how exhaustive and just how wonky we cocktailians can get on these sorts of mysteries I suggest the following:

Jay’s walkthrough of the “Straits Sling” and other incarnations
Drinkboy’s piece on the Singapore Sling and his slight adjustment to the recipe
Dr. Cocktail’s exhaustive white paper on the Singapore Sling, its history, and just where we lost our minds

1. Dr. Bamboo, sitting next to me, took note and said, “Dude, you gotta get a picture of that…” [↩]
2. I assume until you fill up the glass, or some shit [↩]
3. after your arm gets tired of pouring sweet & sour I presume [↩]
4. despite their coaster’s recipe, it apparently is a pre-mix solution [↩]
5. in his ‘Great bars of the World and What Makes Them Great’ seminar [↩]
6. Plymouth, naturally, would ask that you use Plymouth Gin here [↩]
7. a Straits Sling recipe [↩]