Singapore cocktails: Singapore Sling

A little history with your buzz...
The Singapore Sling is one of those cocktails everyone's heard of but nobody's actually tasted. It was first mixed at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore by a bartender by the name of Mr. Ngiam Tong Boon sometime between 1910 and 1915. You can still buy a Singapore Sling at the Raffles, although it's pricey and the recipe has been doctored over the years to appeal to changing tastes. There's plenty of room for argument about what makes an authentic Singapore Sling, but one element that everyone agrees on is the inclusion of a splash of Benedictine, a cognac-based herbal liqueur from France.


Benedictine is a great liquor cabinet investment -- it's not cheap, but it will take you years to drain a bottle of it and every time someone sees it in there among the other bottles, your stock will go up. The Singapore Sling was popular during the early twentieth century, and was referenced in Tom Waits' eerie love song "Shore Leave" from 1983, about a sailor getting into trouble on while on shore leave and thinking about his girlfriend back home in Illinois.

Hair-on-your-chest factor: 66/100

We're not gonna lie to you: Singapore Slings started out as women's drinks, because they tended to include grenadine, which colored the cocktail pink. In our version, we leave out the grenadine (seriously -- it's for making Shirley Temples for your niece, not pouring into your own highball glass), and if you take the time to listen to the Tom Waits song we mentioned above, you'll find that there's nothing girly about a Singapore Sling.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 oz gin
1/2 oz Cointreau Triple Sec
Generous splash of Benedictine liqueur
4 oz pineapple juice
1/2 oz lime juice1 dash Angostura bitters

Shake with ice. Strain into an ice-filled Collins or highball glass.