Singapore Sling

Every time time you see an article about the Singapore Sling, they gotta tell you at length how nobody knows what the original recipe was. It could be a scenario out of Somerset Maugham or something. Say there could be a sane, respectable, happy cocktailian traveling from England to Malaysia in search of the true Singapore Sling, who would then become seduced and confused by each succeeding variation of the recipe until he ended in a town on a modest island, haunting a harbor bar in the afternoon, zombie-like, to the puzzlement and sorrow of the locals, and bedeviled at night by a melancholy madness ending in a violent and inexplicable death in tropical-weight trousers.

Luckily, nobody has to go through all that because Beachbum Berry offers this version which he thinks tastes the best. Me too.



Singapore Sling (1950s)

• 1 oz fresh lime juice
• 1 oz Cherry Heering
• 1/2 oz Bénédictine
• 1/2 oz brandy
• 2 oz gin
• 1 1/2 oz club soda (or more to taste)

Shake everything—except soda—with ice cubes. Stir in soda. Strain into a tall glass. Add fresh ice to fill. Garnish with an orange wheel and mint sprig.
SOURCE: JEFF “BEACHBUM” BERRY, BEACHBUM BERRY REMIXED

I add the soda after I strain the drink, and stir it gently. It seems odd to strain something with bubbles.

Singapore Strait Jacket

Dr. Cocktail does it again. In the entry in Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails on the Straits Sling, what might be called an ancestor recipe of the Singapore Sling, he points out that you can leave out the soda water and prepare the Straits as a cocktail. I think I actually prefer it this way.



Singapore Strait Jacket

• 2 oz gin
• 1/2 oz kirschwasser
• 1/2 oz Bénédictine
• juice of half a lemon
• 2 dashes orange bitters
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters

Stir in an iced shaker and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
SOURCE: TED HAIGH, A.K.A. DR. COCKTAIL, VINTAGE SPIRITS AND FORGOTTEN COCKTAILS