Making the Singapore Sling

The Singapore Sling was purportedly invented by a bartender named Ngiam Tong Boon at the Raffels Hotel in 1915. The inspiration for the cocktail came to him when he observed that while the men at his bar chose to drink Gin or Whiskey, the ladies were confined to drinking fruit drinks and teas. The Singapore Sling was his bid to create a drink especially for the ladies. Soon word spread far and wide making the drink more and more popular. Ngiam wanted to keep the recipe a secret so he locked it up in a safe and when he passed away, the bartenders were lucky enough to be able to retrieve the recipe with the help of his relatives. The safe and the recipe were then put on display in a glass case at Raffels as an ode to this most famous drink.