The Sling
We are starting a series delving into the history of some popular Southeast Asian cocktails. We take one cocktail per week, and take a deep dive into its history, rise to fame, and finally end up with a recipe on how to craft a perfect one. This week, we’re starting with the fabled and legendary Singapore Sling.
This is a long drink with gin as its base, and a constantly evolving roster of tropical fruits. The standard is having a sweet and sour at its core, for example pineapple and lime, or orange and cherry. Other liqueurs can be mixed in, for example pomegranate liqueur and curacao. The story goes that the drink was invented to give the oft-neglected women of Singaporean high society a means of imbibing. The birthplace is ostensibly the Long Bar of Raffles Singapore, where a 16 shaker contraption was invented for the sole purpose of churning out Singapore Slings! Watch this episode of Somebody Feed Phil to see the beast in action.
What is the best recipe for a good Singapore Sling? This is an extremely tough question to answer, although here are some good references:
Long Bar Singapore Sling recipe- Straight from the source, this does not give an explicit recipe, although it does give a comprehensive overview of where the drink came from.
This article goes through, in some detail, side by side several recipes for Singapore Sling. Be warned, the recipes are quite voluminous, although they are very varied and sound delicious.
Perhaps, at the end of the day, we need to remember that this a drink that has evolved over decades, with many fans adding and taking away liquors and fruits of all types to the recipe. This is an nectar of creativity, so we should have a “sling” around and not stick to recipes too much!
What other cocktails have some interesting stories behind them? What are some of the crazy stories behind your favourite poison on the weekends?