The TRUE story of the Singapore Sling
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 มิ.ย. 2024
- While the Raffles Hotel in Singapore claims to be the birthplace of the Singapore Sling we know of today, cocktail historian David Wondrich found evidence of other similar gin Slings in Singapore prior to 1915 when the Raffles Hotel claimed to have invented the drink.
The Sling is historically a very simple cocktail with recipes often with only spirit, sugar, and nutmeg and may have been named after the idea of "slinging one back." The slings we think of today are far more complicated often with various juices and liqueurs. The Gin Sling itself was incredibly popular during the early 1900s and references can be found throughout print during the time, but the unique combination of gin, cherry herring, and Benedictine appears to be an evolution of the drink that happened in Singapore in the early 1900s and the popularity of the drink today can be traced to the Raffles Hotel who reformulated the drink in the 1970s to make the drink we know today.
Learn more about the Singapore Sling here: imbibemagazine.com/origins-of...
The recipe I'm sharing today is the reformulated version from the 1970s, the one that became popular. The Raffles Hotel has never claimed to know the exact version from 1915, and this recreated recipe was supposedly re-created from first-hand accounts. However, this seems to be one more closely associated with the preferences of drinkers we see in the 1970s and 1980s. While this recipe may be important to know and share, there doesn't seem to be much reverence even from The Raffles Hotel who have changed its ingredients in recent years to make a drink to be more aligned with today's preferences.
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📃 Episode Chapters 📃
00:00 Introduction and History
02:52 Singapore Sling Ingredients List
03:03 Making the Singapore Sling
04:42 Singapore Sling Recipe Card
04:53 Drinking the Singapore Sling
📖 Recipe(s) 📖
Singapore Sling
From the Raffles Hotel by Ngiam Tong Boon
1 dash angostura bitters
¼ oz lime juice 7.5 ml)
4 oz pineapple juice (120 ml)
⅓ oz grenadine (10 ml)
¼ oz Cointreau (7.5 ml)
¼ oz Benedictine (7.5 ml)
½ oz Cherry Heering (15 ml)
1 oz Gin (30 ml)
#TropicalCocktail #SingaporeSling #Cocktails
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Continuously great content. How you don't have a million subscribers baffles me.
Friend, I experimented a lot with this drink's proportions and this is what I like best: 1 1/2 oz. gin, 1/2 oz. Cointreau, 1/2 oz. Benedictine, 1/4 oz. Cherry Heering (1/2 oz. is overpowering), 3 oz. pineapple juice, 1/2 oz. lime juice, 2 dashes Angostura. Shake and strain over crushed ice.
@@jimklemens5018
And it’s been referred to colloquially as Cherry Heering for decades.
@@jimklemens5018 I usually call it Seymore.
@@jimklemens5018
Of all the things to gatekeep…
@jimklemens5018 A vast majority of comments are interesting or helpful, but sometimes there's a line between useful and a complete waste of everyone's time. Jim's comments fall into the latter every single time.
And to clarify since you didn't even b other to google, *Heering Cherry Liqueur* is the name of the product more recently. Historically, it was named, registered, labeled, and sold as *"Cherry Heering"* which is why historic recipes NEVER call for Heering Cherry Liqueur
Can't wait to see what you come up with Derek after you go down the Singapore Sling rabbit hole. I don't see many specs in the wild that follow the Raffles build. Most modern specs dial back the 4oz of pineapple juice. Smuggler's Cove swaps out lime for lemon juice. Death & Co splits their cherry spirit between Heering and brandy. Julie Reiner created a riff (Hanalei Sling) splitting gin and rum. Very few iconic drinks have strayed as far from the original spec as the Singapore Sling. If anyone can cull the large number of specs down to a "tasty" few its the Make and Drink crew. Looking forward to your future video.
Outstanding production and values.
You should try it again... 1 oz pineapple, 0.5 lime juice, 2 oz gin, 2 dashes angostura.. that's my more balanced version. It's delicous. And the one from smuggler's cove is pretty good too, as they are not using any pineapple juics, they add a splash of soda instead. Great video! 🙌🏻
I'm not against any of the modern interpretations of the drink and will be revisiting this and the Smugglers Cove recipe, this was simply to showcase the drink that made it famous.
I think my favorite is the 1970s “Doctor Cocktail” version as published by Beachbum Berry. Cuts the pineapple juice in half, and doubles the gin!
Another great video, as always. Thanks! I'm so glad you went into Wondrich's findings on this - this cocktail has so much overlooked history and misinformation floating around. I spent a good 10-20 hours looking into the history and various recipes around 1½ years ago. If it helps, here are a few recipes I think are worth looking into:
- 1913 Singapore Weekly Sun, unearthed by David Wondrich, adapted by Dan Chadwick
- 1937 Cafe Royal Cocktail Book by William J. Tarling, unearthed by Jeff "Beachbum" Berry
- 2011 PDT recipe via Jim Meehan
- 2010s Attaboy recipe via Sam Ross (my personal favorite, though I tick the gin up a bit)
- 2016 Smuggler's Cove recipe via Martin Cate
- Others that may be worth a look include Dale DeGroff, Chris McMillian, Gaz Regan, Charles H. Baker, Trader Vic, Ted Haigh, and David Embury. And even this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Definitely looking forward to your follow-up video! In addition to the controversy/misinformation mess relating to the cocktail's history, there's also a whole separate controversy regarding the use of the term "Sling". Wondrich also touches on this in some of his writings. Basically, the term "Sling" was original used to refer to simple mixed drinks that predate the term "cocktail" in America. They were similar to what we would call an Old-fashioned now. The term largely fell out of style toward the tail end of the 19th century. In the early 1900s in Singapore, for whatever reason (likely just alliteration) someone started using "sling" in connection with the Straits Sling, which was likely the direct progenitor of the first (pre-Raffles) Singapore Sling. But these drinks do not actually resemble original Slings in terms of build/character. The problem is that since no one was advertising old world Slings anymore, the term "Sling" was corrupted/co-opted and now many people associate it with lengthened Sours.
Very cool and helpful. Not positive, but I think the first time it shows up in a book is Savoy in 1930. Found another recipe from a Singapore newspaper from 1930s as well. But ultimately while it's interesting, it's not possible to pinpoint who first combined the gin and cherry brandy in Singapore so it seems like an exercise that will never yield definitive results.
And agree on the sling terminology. There's probably a lot that gets lost in translation and from word of mouth since most likely the use of sling was somehow brought over from America to England/Singapore by either print or a traveler, but that's even deeper into the weeds of something we'll never be able to answer. But I think of those terms like the word cocktail, at one point very specific and now just a term for any mixed drink.
Had a chance to drink the Singapore Sling at the Raffles Hotel on a trip to Singapore. Tourist trap? Of course. Delicious? Yes. Of course I bought the glass in the gift shop 😊.
DeGroff’s is the way to go.
1 1/2 oz pineapple, 1/2 oz each lime & Cherry Heering, 1/4 oz each Benedictine & Orange Liquor, 1/2 tsp Grenadine, dash Angostura, 1 1/2 oz London Dry. Shake with cubes, strain over pebble.
I've tried 3 versions and so far Dale DeGroff's is the best.
I really wanted to like this drink because of my love for the movie Cocktail, so I reworked it a lot until I came up with these specs:
1 1/2 oz london dry gin
1/2 oz Cointreau or dry curacao
1/4 oz Cherry Heering
1/4 oz benedictine
1/4 oz grenadine
1/2 oz lemon juice
1/2 oz lime juice
1/2 oz pineapple
1 dash angostura
1 dash Orange bitters
2 oz soda
Great information, beautiful cocktail and that video editing, just makes it incredibly entertaining. Happy to have found this channel to increase my knowledge while trying to become a good bartender.
Looking forward to the sequel!
This recipe makes an amazing Singapore Sling! By far my favorite recipe. Thanks and cheers 🍹
Besides the Remember the Maine, another good use for Heering is the Brandied Cherry, which also includes Benedictine. Found it years ago on the Kaiser Penguin blog
Tried to find the Kaiser Penguin spec, can't track it down. Can you please share?
Awsome ! I love tropical cocktails!
Ahhh! I have had that bottle Black Forest cherry brandy for 10+ years! Look forward to using it…
Love the format of your vids. Sometimes we don’t need a “fixed” cocktail.
The Sam Ross version is on point.
I'm about to make this tonight. But instead of grenadine, I'm using a pomegranate syrup. I heard from Steve Barmen that pomegranate syrup was better to use than grenadine even though grenadine is made from pomegranates.
Not sure what the defined differences are except for maybe water content and cooked vs uncooked.
Let's find more uses for Cherry Heering; shall we start with a "Remember the Maine?" Also, not sure we can "fix" a cocktail as it is was created for a certain note, feature, function, or story. However, we can always create a variation or "riff" to elevate to a different level. Cheers.
Blood and Sand, too!
Yup may not be the best but I know many that love this drink and is a real crowd pleaser. At home one can adjust over time to their liking
Sling Month!
We need more tropical style!
According to Giffords Guide there are 119 cocktails you can make with Cherry Heering. Not saying that all of them are good but a few more than just Singapore Sling ;-)
Kirshwasser is really a totally different animal than Cherry Heering. Heering is a rich, sweet, liqueur with spices. Kirshwasser is clear, dry, distilled liquor with only hints of cherry flavour. If I were to try to work Kirshwasser into a Singapore Sling, I'd go with splitting it with the gin, or replacing the gin. Trying to replace the Heering with the Kirshwasser will remove practically all of the elements that the Heering is meant to bring to the party.
I don't disagree. Not trying to re-create cherry herring but there are some recipes from Singapore back in the first half of the 1900s that call for a dry cherry brandy which is another reason to explore using the Kirshwasser.
Every difference cited here sounds like a compelling argument for playing with Kirshwasser to rebalance the aspects of the drink Derek found problematic! Very excited to see where this goes.
@none_remaining I did find a simple recipe yesterday form a Singapore newspaper, maybe in 1930ish, and calls for a dry brandy. Def going to start there
A kirshwasser that I use and recommend is the one by Clear Creek distillery in Oregon (actually my favorite product of theirs is their Pear Brandy which makes a great sour), more prominently labeled as just "Cherry Brandy." @@makeanddrink
I think this one is a little easier to figure out than not on the history front, however you have to understand how people moved before immigration laws existed. (1890 US and then everyone followed suite in the post 1945 reconstruction) If you pin something as originated in the US in terms of terminology odds are that an American Traveler was involved with the creation or coining of the name. Until 1928 American's with a bit of extra cash(~$10,000 cash) would just travel and if they had friends who were traveling merchants then the more exotic there destinations would be. You also had members of the Marines and Navy bobbing around also getting swept into conflicts around the world. So a general Idea how this came about can be figured out the exact details may just be lost to history.
And I happen to still have some schladerer on hand, not much. Now I anxiously await the next episode.
The Raspberry I have would also probably fit well here.