Remarkably, the Singapore Sling was the first cocktail I ever sipped, although it cost far less than $40 and came in a plastic cup in the bar at Greek Peak—a Central New York ski area where my college ski club went weekly every winter. I tried it because a particularly pretty co-ed was enjoying one, so I asked her what it was—you know…to break the ice. The conversation pretty much ended there, but my cocktail habit didn’t.
That memory lay fallow for decades; while I developed an early preference for gin drinks (especially the dry Martini), I didn’t look up the Singapore Sling recipe until several years ago, when I decided to serve it as a sample cocktail during one of my spirits tasting events. Unsurprisingly, it turned out to be a crowd pleaser, and with this leg up from the New York Times it may be headed for a moment. The article is excellent; a regular reader of my blog will know I’m as interested in the history and culture behind cocktails as I am in the drinks themselves, and the Times’ Nicholas Yong delivers all of that. While the Long Bar’s $40 price for a sling is a little breathtaking, I’m reminded of what what the late, great bartender Sasha Petraske is credited with saying: “The drinks are free; guests pay for the hospitality.”
“The Long Bar, located in the 139-year-old Raffles Hotel, is dominated by a spiral wooden staircase, where gunnysacks of groundnuts were placed. Overhead, mechanical punkah ceiling fans — historically operated by hand — created a gentle breeze. A poster outside the bar urged customers to “imbibe like a plantation owner in the early 1900s.”
“A hand-cranked, cast-iron cocktail mixing machine, called the Sling Shaker, which can shake up to 18 Slings at once, was also a big draw for customers. Despite its vintage look, it was installed only in 2018 — and the shakers are sometimes not even filled when the machine is operating.”
A bit further into the article:
“According to Raffles Hotel’s official history, the Sling was invented in 1915 by the Hainanese bartender Ngiam Tong Boon, initially as a means for respectable ladies to disguise the fact that they were drinking in public. The cocktail’s ingredients include cherry liqueur, pineapple juice, Cointreau and gin. A life-size cutout of Ngiam now stands at the Long Bar entrance.”
Coincidentally, Ngiam Tong Boon is also the sound a college student makes when falling off a bar stool after a half-dozen or so and après-ski Singapore Slings. Or so I’ve read.
THE SINGAPORE SLING RECIPE
1 oz Gin
¼ oz Benedictine
¼ oz Cointreau or Grand Marnier
1 oz Pineapple juice (freshly squeezed, or Dole 100% Juice)
½ oz Lime juice (freshly squeezed)
1 dash Aromatic bitters (e.g., Angostura)
Club soda to top off
Lime wheel & cherry to garnish
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker mostly full of ice. Shake hard and pour into a chilled, ice-filled highball, Collins, or Hurricane glass. Top with club soda and garnish.
