The Singapore Sling is one of the most-known cocktails to have an unrecoverable original recipe. The drink was created by Ngiam Tong Boon, a Hainanese-Chinese bartender at the Long Bar of the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, around 1915. Ngiam left the bar in the 1930s, the bar staff turnover lost the recipe through the colonial era, and the Raffles Hotel itself was occupied during the Second World War. The version Raffles serves today is a 1970s reconstruction by manager Ngiam's grand-nephew; the version most international bars serve is a variant of that.
The original Singapore Sling, as Ngiam Tong Boon mixed it, is lost. Every recipe sold under the name since the war is an educated reconstruction.
Ngiam Tong Boon and the Lost Recipe
Ngiam Tong Boon worked at the Raffles Hotel's Long Bar in Singapore from the early 1910s until the early 1930s. The Sling — a 19th-century English drink form: spirit, citrus, sugar, water — was already a Singapore staple; Ngiam's contribution was a complex, fruit-forward version specifically for women, who at the time were socially expected to drink fruit punches rather than spirit-forward cocktails. He kept his recipe in his head; the bar staff didn't write it down.
The bar lost continuity during World War II, when Singapore was under Japanese occupation. After the war the recipe was reconstructed multiple times by Raffles staff and visiting bartenders, with each version slightly different. The recipe Raffles publishes today is reportedly based on a 1936 note left by a visiting guest — sometimes credited to a 1970s reconstruction effort by Raffles management — and is presented as the canonical version. Whether it matches the 1915 original is impossible to verify, and the specific reconstructor's name varies across sources.
The Spec (Raffles Reconstruction)
An ounce and a half of London Dry gin, half ounce of cherry Heering, quarter ounce each of Cointreau and Bénédictine, four ounces of pineapple juice, half ounce of lime juice, a quarter ounce of grenadine, and a dash of Angostura bitters. Shake hard with ice; strain into a tall (hurricane) glass over crushed ice. Garnish with a pineapple slice and a cherry.
Cherry Heering, Not Substitute
Cherry Heering — the 200-year-old Danish cherry liqueur — is the specific ingredient. American "cherry brandy" or maraschino do not produce the same effect. Heering gives the drink its red-pink color and its slight bitter-almond depth; substituting flattens the cocktail. Cherry Heering is also the cherry liqueur in the Blood and Sand and the Brandy Crusta, so a bottle works hard.
Pineapple Juice — Fresh
Fresh-pressed pineapple juice or unpasteurized chilled pineapple makes a meaningful difference. Canned pineapple juice has a metallic note that fights the cherry and Bénédictine. The cocktail relies on the pineapple as its volume ingredient — four ounces of it — so the quality matters.
Glass and Garnish
A tall hurricane or sling glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish with a pineapple wedge (skewered with a brandied cherry) and a small paper umbrella, in the full Raffles spirit. The visual is part of the drink; a Singapore Sling served in a coupe with no garnish reads as wrong.
Bottom Line
The Singapore Sling is the rare cocktail where the historical authenticity question can be set aside — the recipe is what we have, and what we have is genuinely good when made properly. The drink rewards real Cherry Heering, fresh pineapple, and a tall glass with crushed ice; it punishes the airport-bar version with canned pineapple, fake grenadine, and an undersized pour. Make one at home and decide whether the modern reconstruction earns its mythology.