Cocktail Recipe Du Jour

The Singapore Sling
I previously wrote about the effects of a night with the cocktail, but how do you make a Singapore Sling?

D. A. Embury stated in the Fine Art of Mixing Drinks: "Of all the recipes published for [this drink] I have never seen any two that were alike."

Some sources say the "original recipe" contains gin with cherry brandy and orange, pineapple, and lime juice.  Others use gin, Cherry Heering, Bénédictine, and fresh pineapple juice, primarily from Sarawak pineapples which enhance the flavor and create a foamy top.



Reports state the cocktail was invented back in 1915 by Ngiam Tong Boon, a Hainanese bartender working at the Long Bar in Raffles Hotel, Singapore. Former bartenders and written notes of the original recipe have since been discovered.  However, over the years, recipes published in articles about Raffles Hotel before the 1970s are significantly different from current recipes, and Singapore Slings drunk elsewhere in Singapore differ from the recipe used at Raffles Hotel.

In the a cocktail recipe book from the 1930's, it states:
"Pour ¼ Lemon juice, ¼ Dry Gin, ½ Cherry Brandy in to a cocktail shaker.  Shake well and strain into medium size glass, and fill with soda water. Add 1 lump of ice."

How I learned to make it:
In a collins glass, pour 1/2 oz. of Grenadine.  Then add ice filled all the way to the top.  Next, add 1 oz. of gin, 2 oz. of Sweet & Sour.  Fill the rest of the glass with club soda/seltzer, or 7-up/Sprite.  Top with a float of cherry brandy and garnish with a cherry.

However you make it, you'll definitely enjoy it!  Cheers!