Recipe
BarFaith adaptation
- 2oz gin (Bombay Sapphire)
- .5oz Cherry Angostura “grenadine” (see below) – alternatively, Cherry Heering is often called for, alongside grenadine
- .25oz Bénédictine
- 1oz fresh orange juice
- 1oz fresh lime juice
- 1oz fresh pineapple juice (I actually used a frozen pineapple ice cube)
Shake all ingredients with ice until foamy (from the pineapple), and pour over fresh crushed ice.
*To make the syrup, combine equal parts tart cherry juice (e.g. Cheribundi) with sugar, heat until sugar is dissolved, then just add a bit of Angostura bitters and bottle. It’s basically a cherry grenadine; see more usage ideas here. With a tsp of vodka, it’ll keep for months in the fridge.
About
I was traveling around some rural India villages the past week. On the way back, we had a 24hr layover in Singapore, which I’ve gotta say was the most mind-boggling city/country I’ve ever been – it literally felt like an alternate reality from the future with its clean flawless public infrastructure and extreme dramatic architecture interwoven with luscious greenery and gardens. But most importantly, let’s talk drinks. The most famous, of course… The Singapore Sling.
Although often associated with “tiki,” the Singapore Sling predates the tiki era by a few decades and originated in the early 1900s at the famous Raffles hotel in Singapore. The tiki association comes into play from Trader Vic showcasing variants of this drink on his famous tiki-era menus and recipe books as an exotic discovery “gathered from the four corners of the globe.” As famous as the drink is, the original recipe is not known, and there is much speculation about what it might have contained.
Here’s what we do know (or generally agree on) about it:
- It was created primarily as a drink for women and pink in color, a disguised cocktail to look like fruit juice as it wasn’t socially acceptable for women to drink in public during the era. The pink likely was from some type of cherry liqueur or syrup.
- It was gin based, and likely contained an herbal component in the form of Bénédictine
- Most recipes use some combo of gin, cherry brandy, juices (orange, lime, lemon, pineapple), Bénédictine, grenadine, and bitters. Pineapple is often a disputed ingredient, but since pineapple farming was a significant industry in Singapore around the early 1900s, this made it a solid candidate.
Check out this recipe for the Smuggler’s Cove adaptation!