{{Short description|Cocktail with gin and cherry liqueur}} {{Other uses|Singapore Sling (disambiguation)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2020}} {{Infobox drink | name = Singapore sling | image = Singapore Sling and peanuts at the Raffles Hotel Long Bar in Singapore.jpg | image_alt = Photograph of the Singapore Sling at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore. It is a tropical drink with a reddish hue and some pinkish foam, served in a hurricane glass decorated with the text "Singapore Sling Raffles Hotel" and an image of people drinking. There is a wedge of pineapple as a garnish. A burlap bag of peanuts sits behind the beverage. | type = Mixed drink | base = Gin | ingredients = {{plainlist|* 30 ml gin * 15 ml Kirsch (Modern recipes mostly use Cherry liqueur) * 7.5 ml Cointreau * 7.5 ml DOM Bénédictine * 120 ml fresh pineapple juice * 15 ml fresh lime juice * 10 ml Grenadine * 1 dash Angostura bitters}} | served = Straight up: chilled, without ice | garnish = Pineapple and Maraschino cherry | prep = Pour all ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice cubes. Shake well. Strain into a hurricane glass. | drinkware = Hurricane glass }}
The '''Singapore sling''' is a gin-based sling cocktail from Singapore. This long drink was reputed to have been developed in 1915 by Ngiam Tong Boon ({{zh|first=t|t=嚴崇文|s=严崇文|p=Yán Chóngwén|w=Yen Ch'ung-wen}}), a bartender at the Long Bar in Raffles Hotel, Singapore.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Singapore Sling |url=https://www.nlb.gov.sg/main/article-detail?cmsuuid=a671de5e-c8f0-49a8-9569-4a71fd0d8408 |website=National Library Board |access-date=7 June 2025 |archive-date=2 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240302110023/https://www.nlb.gov.sg/main/article-detail?cmsuuid=a671de5e-c8f0-49a8-9569-4a71fd0d8408 |url-status=live }}</ref> It was initially called the '''gin sling'''.<ref>''The Daily Telegraph'', "Peterborough: Sling shot AVA GARDNER'S knickers are still missing", 13 April 1991</ref><ref>{{cite news |first=Colin |last=Campbell |title=Singapore Journal; Back to Somerset Maugham and Life's Seamy Side |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1982/12/12/travel/singapore-sling-is-spoken-here.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=12 December 1982 |archive-date=9 November 2019 |access-date=12 February 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191109180112/https://www.nytimes.com/1982/12/12/travel/singapore-sling-is-spoken-here.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
== History == The drink was created sometime between 1899 and 1915 at Raffles Hotel. Simon Difford wrote that the drink was originally Ngiam's "house" version of the gin sling.<ref name="difford">{{Cite web |last=Difford |first=Simon |title=Singapore Sling |url=https://www.diffordsguide.com/encyclopedia/446/cocktails/singapore-sling |work=Difford's Guide |access-date=March 2, 2024 |archive-date=19 September 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240919171038/https://www.diffordsguide.com/encyclopedia/446/cocktails/singapore-sling |url-status=live }}</ref> It was socially unacceptable for women to drink alcohol in public at that time, so Ngiam made the cocktail look like fruit juice to enable women to drink it.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Hinson |first=Tamara |date=30 July 2019 |title=The story behind the Singapore Sling |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/asia/singapore-sling-recipe-cocktail-how-to-make-raffles-hotel-history-a9025201.html |work=The Independent |archive-date=6 January 2026 |access-date=10 February 2026 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260106011230/https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/asia/singapore-sling-recipe-cocktail-how-to-make-raffles-hotel-history-a9025201.html |url-status=live }}</ref> On the other hand, David Wondrich of ''Esquire'' claimed that the drink was created in the 1890s and wasn't related to the Raffles until the 1920s.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Wondrich |first=David |date=March 25, 2011 |title=The Imposters |url=https://www.esquire.com/food-drink/drinks/a9663/authentic-cocktail-recipes-0411/ |work=Esquire |archive-date=31 January 2026 |access-date=10 February 2026 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260131161552/https://www.esquire.com/food-drink/drinks/a9663/authentic-cocktail-recipes-0411/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
The original recipe of the Singapore sling is debated. This is because the original recipe was lost after the 1930s when the hotel stopped serving the drink.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Straits Sling|url=https://www.drinkboy.com/cocktails/Recipe.aspx?itemid=155|work=DrinkBoy|access-date=March 2, 2024|archive-date=12 August 2025|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250812051941/https://drinkboy.com/Cocktails/Recipe.aspx?itemid=155|url-status=live}}</ref> D. A. Embury stated in the ''Fine Art of Mixing Drinks'': "Of all the recipes published for [this drink] I have never seen any two that were alike." ''The Times'' described the "original recipe" as a mixture of two measures of gin with one of cherry brandy and one each of orange, pineapple, and lime juice.<ref>p. iv/4 (Singapore Suppl.), The Times 19 July 1976</ref> The hotel's recipe was recreated based on a 1936 note by a visitor.<ref name="difford"/>
The Long Bar at Raffles Hotel sells 800-1200 Singapore slings every day. 70% of the total revenue of the bar comes from the sling, which earns the bar S$15 million in annual sales.<ref>{{cite news|last=Presser|first=Brandon|url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-02-22/8-secrets-of-five-star-hotels-i-learned-as-a-butler-to-vips-celebrities|archive-url=https://archive.today/20241229090210/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-02-22/8-secrets-of-five-star-hotels-i-learned-as-a-butler-to-vips-celebrities|title=Eight Secrets of Fancy Hotels I Learned After Becoming a Butler|date=22 February 2024|work=Bloomberg News|accessdate=4 March 2024|archivedate=29 December 2024|url-status=live}}</ref>
== Today == By the 1980s, in countries such as the United States, the Singapore sling was often little more than gin, bottled sour mix, and grenadine, a mixture showing very little relationship to the recipe used elsewhere under the same name. By that time both in the Raffles Hotel and Hong Kong, and generally in the UK, the recipe had remained standardised as gin and cherry brandy (in various ratios between 2:1 and 1:2). By 2000, Bénédictine was introduced and pineapple juice used more. In New Orleans, sometimes Hurricane mix was used instead of pineapple.
In the 1983 film ''Superman III'', Gus Gorman (Richard Pryor) prepares a Singapore sling for Smallville security guard Brad (Gavan O'Herlihy). However, Brad tarnishes the drink by requesting that vodka be added.<ref>{{cite web |title=Superman III Singapore Sling |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086393/goofs/?item=gf1794851 |website=IMDb.com |access-date=July 24, 2025}}</ref>
== Gin slings == The gin sling, attested from 1790, described a North American drink of gin, which was flavoured, sweetened, and served cold.<ref>OED, '''gin-sling, n.'''</ref> The "Singapore sling" has been documented as early as 1930 as a recipe in the ''Savoy Cocktail Book'': Ingredients one-quarter lemon juice, one-quarter dry gin, one-half cherry brandy: "Shake well and strain into medium-sized glass, and fill with soda water. Add 1 lump of ice".<ref>OED '''Singapore sling n'''.</ref>
This recipe persisted for decades and is recalled in 1982 in ''The Sainsbury Book of Cocktails & Party Drinks'',<ref>{{cite book |last1=Turner |first1=Joe |title=The Sainsbury Book of Cocktails & Party Drinks |date=1982 |publisher=Cathay Books |location=London |isbn=0-86178-182-1 |page=68}}</ref> where it is also called the Singapore sling and was the classic recipe of the time. A minor difference occurs in that the measures of the spirits were twice the quantity compared with the lemon and soda of the 1930 quotation and garnished with slice of lemon and a glacé cherry. These two very similar forms represent a traditional British version of the Singapore sling.
Also documented in ''The Sainsbury Book of Cocktails & Party Drinks'' is the Straits sling (also a Raffles Hotel invention named after the nearby Singapore Strait), which was even stronger, but also added Bénédictine, Angostura bitters, and orange bitters, but its garnish was both lemon and orange slices and it did not have the glacé cherry.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Turner |first1=Joe |title=The Sainsbury Book of Cocktails & Party Drinks |date=1982 |publisher=Cathay Books |location=London |isbn=0-86178-182-1 |page=69}}</ref>
''Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable'' (''Brewer's'') refers to the gin sling as "a drink mainly composed of gin and lemon" and states that it has been attributed to bartender John Collins of London, "but it dates from before his time and was found in the U.S.A. by 1800",<ref>''Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable'', 1969, p. 463.</ref> which is similar to the John Collins, another cocktail of gin and lemon.
== See also == {{portal|Singapore|Liquor}} * Tom Collins * List of cocktails * List of Singaporean inventions and discoveries
== References == {{reflist}}
== Further reading == * ''The Sainsbury's Book of Cocktails and Party Drinks'', Joe Turner, Cathay Books, 1982 * ''The Genealogy and Mythology of the Singapore Sling'', Ted "Dr. Cocktail" Haigh, in ''Mixologist: The Journal of the American Cocktail'', 2007, {{ISBN|978-0-9760937-0-1}} * Andrew F. Smith: ''The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink''. Oxford University Press 2007, {{ISBN|978-0-19-530796-2}}, p. 567 ({{Google books|AoWlCmNDA3QC|online copy|page=567}}) * Rob Chirico: ''Field Guide to Cocktails: How to Identify and Prepare Virtually Every Mixed Drink at the Bar''. Quirk Books 2005, {{ISBN|978-1-59474-063-3}}, p. 257 ({{Google books|rAXilKkMM7YC|online copy|page=257}})
== External links == {{commons}} * [https://web.archive.org/web/20151007170313/http://www.raffles.com/singapore/offers/ss100/ 100th Anniversary of the original Singapore Sling] at [http://www.raffles.com/singapore Raffles Singapore] * [http://www.drinkboy.com/Cocktails/Recipe.aspx?itemid=151 Singapore Sling recipe] at DrinkBoy * {{cite news |author=Jason Wilson |date=February 2011 |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/31/AR2011013105787.html |title=For a better Singapore Sling, the answer is clear (not red)}}
{{IBACocktails}} {{Singaporean cuisine|state=collapsed}} {{Singapore topics}}
Category:Cocktails with Angostura bitters Category:Cocktails with gin Category:Cocktails with triple sec or curaçao Category:Cocktails with fruit liqueur Category:Cocktails with liqueur Category:Cocktails with pineapple juice Category:Cocktails with grenadine Category:Cocktails with lime juice Category:Food and drink introduced in the 1910s Category:Singaporean alcoholic beverages Category:Tiki drinks Category:IBA official cocktails