Food Fridays: At Raffles, Sling Back in Time

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  By Gaurav Raghuvanshi

  
  

It’s the only place in squeaky clean Singapore where you can litter with impunity.

Gaurav Raghuvanshi/The Wall Street Journal

The Singapore Sling was invented in 1915 by a bartender at the Raffles Hotel as a woman’s drink, as it was not nice for ladies to be seen drinking alcohol openly in those days.

Well, you can’t exactly start a fire, but the staff at the Long Bar at Singapore’s famed Raffles Hotel encourages you to toss your peanut shells on the floor. Helpfully, every table has a huge bowl of peanuts waiting to be cracked, and a carpet of shells cover the teak wood and tile flooring.

But we weren’t at the Long Bar to derive cheap thrills by messing up the floor. This was where the Singapore Sling, the most famous cocktail of the city state, was invented. And, that was where our interest lay.

Sitting at the bar, we tried to spy on Kiver Yong as he prepared the classic drink that was created by Hainanese-Chinese bartender Ngiam Tong Boon in 1915. That was needless, as Mr. Yong was more than happy to show us how it was prepared. He even gave a card with the recipe and a brief history of the Singapore Sling.

The Raffles Hotel previously had a museum where it had preserved the safe in which Mr. Ngiam locked away his precious recipe books and also the Sling recipe hastily jotted down on a bar chit in 1936 by a guest. The museum has since been closed and most of the articles donated.

The Singapore Sling was invented as a woman’s drink as it was not nice for ladies to be seen drinking alcohol openly in those days. A look around at the tables reveals that the cocktail, despite its pink color, is very popular among men, too.

“Most of the foreigners who visit the hotel want to try it. We even have some locals who are regular patrons,” said Mr. Yong, the bartender.

Raffles Hotel sells about 700 glasses of Singapore Sling daily, of which 500 are sold at the Long Bar itself.

Often, taxi drivers suggest the Singapore Sling to their passengers and bring them to the hotel that opened in 1887. Dwarfed by shiny skyscrapers around it, the three-storied Raffles Hotel is still able to keep its old world charm with its white marble colonnades and wide verandahs. The elevators, though with modern steel panels, smell heavily of machine oil and take almost as long to climb one floor as a modern lift would take to shoot up 10 floors.

Raffles

At the Raffles Hotel’s Long Bar, guests can watch the original Singapore Sling be prepared as they take part in a tradition — tossing peanut shells on the floor.

The original Singapore Sling (recipe below) is a gin-based drink that has a nice balance between sweetness of pineapple juice and the spiciness of Dom Benedictine with a dash of Angostura bitters to finish. It’s one of the most refreshing cocktails that you can get in Singapore, and indeed, anywhere.

The Long Bar offers variations that are based on vodka or Bacardi rum and different fruit juices. While the Singapore Sling is definitely worth trying for its history, we would also recommend its ‘Autumn Sling’ variation.

The drink itself is quite attractive with its rich dark purple color from blackberries. The sweetness of the apple and pineapple juice is perfectly balanced with the tanginess of the lemon wedges and blackberries. We dare say we liked it more than the original Singapore Sling.

How to make the Raffles Hotel Singapore Sling:

Ingredients:

30 ml Gin

15 ml Heering cherry liquor

120 ml pineapple juice

15 ml lime juice

7.5 ml Contreau

7.5 ml Dom Benedictine

10 ml Grenadine

A dash of Angostura Bitters

Mix ingredients well in a cocktail shaker and pour in a tall glass full of ice cubes. Garnish with a slice of pineapple and a cherry.

Food Fridays: At Raffles, Sling Back in Time