Singapore Sling (Old Tom Gin)

This version swaps in Old Tom gin, the sweeter, more old-fashioned style of gin that predates the London Dry now used in most modern Singapore Slings. Built with cherry liqueur, Bénédictine, lemon juice and bitters rather than the fruit-juice-heavy "tiki" formula most bars pour today, it reads closer to the leaner, spirit-forward drink cocktail historians believe predated the pineapple-and-grenadine version popularized from the mid-20th century onward, before pink, fruity-style cocktails became fashionable and the recipe grew sweeter and more elaborate.

The Singapore Sling itself is generally credited to Ngiam Tong Boon, a bartender at the Long Bar in Raffles Hotel in Singapore, with its creation dated to sometime between 1899 and 1915. It was originally devised, by the most common account, as a pink drink disguised to look like fruit juice so that women could drink it discreetly in an era when female public drinking was frowned upon. Because the hotel never recorded the original formula, the exact early recipe remains disputed among historians and the version served today was reconstructed decades later from bartenders' recollections and scattered notes.