Cocktail · Medium strength
Singapore Sling
Gin, cherry liqueur, pineapple, and half the Raffles Hotel back bar — colonial-era fireworks.
How to order it: Born at the Long Bar, Singapore, ~1915. Tall glass, big garnish, no apologies.
Flavor profile
The recipe
- 1½ oz gin; ½ oz cherry liqueur
- ¼ oz Cointreau; ¼ oz Bénédictine
- 4 oz pineapple; ½ oz lime; grenadine
- Dash Angostura; shake
- Tall glass; cherry and pineapple
The story
The Singapore Sling was created at the Long Bar of Singapore's Raffles Hotel, credited to bartender Ngiam Tong Boon around 1915. By popular account, it was engineered so that women, then expected to sip nothing stronger than juice in public, could drink gin disguised in rosy respectability. The original recipe was lost, and the version served today is a reconstruction assembled from memory and surviving notes, a fact the hotel discusses with admirable candor. The Long Bar still pours thousands, peanut shells crunching underfoot by tradition. It endures as colonial-era theater turned national icon: a secret that became a souvenir.
Adjacent pours