Raffles 1887

Legendary Libations

How the Singapore Sling conquered the world

FIRST there was the gin sling – gin, lemon juice, sugar syrup and club soda – and at the beginning of the 20th century, Singapore’s best gin slings were to be found at Raffles Hotel. The hotel also served a mean gin pahit, or pink gin, in which a dash of Angostura bitters was added to two slugs of neat gin. The writer and Raffles regular Somerset Maugham was particularly fond of this pink-tinged concoction and refers to it in several of his novels (gin pahits were also popular with naval officers as the bitters apparently helped with sea-sickness).

But there was a problem. Turn-of-the-century etiquette decreed that only men could drink alcohol in public. A woman who did so risked damaging not only her reputation, but quite possibly her chances of marriage. So while the hotel’s male guests could imbibe as many gin slings or pahits as they liked, their female companions had to make do with a decorous fruit juice or a nice cup of tea.

In 1915, the head bartender of the Long Bar was an islander from Hainan named Ngiam Tong Boon. He had an idea. What if he made a cocktail that looked like an innocuous fruit punch matching the pink hue of the ladies' cheeks, but had the secret kick of a gin sling? The ladies could drink it with impunity! After experimenting with various ingredients, Ngiam perfected what became known as the Singapore Sling.

The rest is mixology history: more than a century later, Ngiam’s creation – or, more accurately, a version of his creation, since today’s Singapore Sling diverges a little from Ngiam’s original recipe – is replicated in bars and restaurants all over the world. Each time a new Raffles hotel is opened, the Sling is re-imagined (below) with a new local recipe as a tribute.

Accor Hotels Sling Cocktails Recipe Collection

Many well-known figures have given the Singapore Sling the thumbs-up over the decades, among them the journalist Hunter S Thomson, who referenced the cocktail ‘with mescal on the side’ in his 1971 seminal work, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The reference (minus the mescal) made it into the 1998 movie version of the book, starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro, which gave the Singapore Sling a cool new image, not to mention spawning a slew of social media posts showing how to make the ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Singapore Sling’.

Sadly, Ngiam Tong Boon did not have long to savour his success as he died later the same year. Doubtless he would have been proud of his legacy – not least because his creation is now a beacon of eco-consciousness: the straws that accompany a Sling at Raffles Hotel Singapore are made from eco-friendly potato starch, and for every 25 Slings sold, the hotel plants a tree in the Sumatran or Kalimantan rainforest. 

The Singapore Sling original recipe

30ml gin
15ml cherry liqueur
120ml fresh pineapple juice
15ml fresh lime juice
7.5ml Cointreau
7.5ml Benedictine DOM
10ml grenadine
dash of Angostura bitters

Garnish with a slice of pineapple and a cherry.