The Singapore Sling has a bit of a tricky history to piece out. Most recipes nowadays have pineapple juice, and attribute the Singapore Sling recipe to the Raffles Hotel in 1915. While some evidence points in that general direction, it is hard to confirm. What muddies the waters is changing ingredients from reference to reference, bouncing between simple gin sling-based recipes to something that resembles a tropical drink. For additional confusion, sometimes it is a Singapore Sling, sometimes a Singapore Gin Sling, sometimes a Straits Sling. And just for fun the ingredients for a Singapore Sling in one book may be the same as the ingredients as a Straits Sling in another, with a Singapore Sling right alongside, of course with different ingredients.
In this episode we try to sort out the Singapore Sling story and how it got to be such a recognizable cocktail. We take a look at the origins of gin slings, Western influences that might have brought it to Southeast Asia, and British colonial rule a long way from the U.K.
The recipe is:
- 2 ounces gin
- ¾ ounces Cherry Heering
- 2 teaspoons Benedictine
- 2 teaspoons Cointreau
- 2 ounces pineapple juice
- ¾ ounce fresh lime juice
- 2 dashes grenadine
- 1 dash Angostura Bitters
- Soda water
Transition music: Cephalopod by Kevin MacLeod
Closing Music: Slinger by Gorowski
