• 30mL gin
• 15mL maraschino liqueur
• 7.5ml Cointreau
• 7.5ml Benedictine
• 10mL grenadine
• 15mL lime juice
• 120mL pineapple juice
• 1 dash Angostura bitters

Shake everything over ice until well-chilled. Strain into a tall glass such as a highball. Garnish with a wedge of pineapple and a cherry.

I’m taking a break from my tour of Singapore to talk about the classic and famous Singapore Sling. It may feel somewhat touristy and somewhat gimmicky. It may be too sweet for some. But I have a soft spot for a Singapore Sling. And I have many fond memories of drinking them by the pool or on the beach on a hot day in Southeast Asia.

When it’s well-done, it can be an incredible concoction with many complex flavors. Excellent herbal notes from the Benedictine merge with the many citrus flavors combined in the drink along with a nice punch from the gin and the bitters make for quite the drink to sip on a hot afternoon (and it’s always hot in Singapore). It is, of course, quite sweet. In poor versions it is nothing but sweet¹and on a hot summer day by the pool, even that can still be enjoyable. I’m here to talk about the good versions, though, where the sweetness is balanced with so many other flavors.

The history of this drink is somewhat well documented. It’s birthplace, the Long Bar at the Raffles Hotel has this to say:

The Singapore Sling, widely regarded as the national drink, was first created in 1915 by Raffles bartender Ngiam Tong Boon. Primarily a gin-based cocktail, the Singapore Sling also contains pineapple juice, lime juice, curaçao and Bénédictine. Giving it the pretty pink hue are grenadine and cherry liqueur. Bartender Ngiam deliberately chose to give the cocktail this rosy colour.

Alas, some of the drink’s history seems to have been lost to time. The original recipe, it would seem, has long since been forgotten. When describing the recipe for the Singapore Sling in the Fine Art of Mixing Drinks (1948), D.A. Embury says: “Of all the recipes published for [this drink] I have never seen any two that were alike.” So, while the Long Bar may claim to have the original recipe still, this seems suspect. And this almost surely why you see so many variations on the drink around the world.

The variation is part of the charm; it’s a good drink to fiddle with. With an ingredient list like that, it’s easy to swap out one thing for another and have some fun. Keeping the balance can be a challenge, but if you’re willing to experiment with the exact proportions, there are a world of possibilities. I leave that as an exercise for the reader.