Singapore Sling
Gin, cherry liqueur, herbal liqueurs and juice, topped with soda — a layered, tropical classic.
- Difficulty
- advanced
- Prep time
- 8 min
- Strength
- 8.7% ABV
- Glassware
- Hurricane glass
- Base
- gin
- Serves
- 1
Ingredients
- Gin30ml
- Cherry Heering liqueur15ml
- Triple sec8ml
- Bénédictine8ml
- Fresh lime juice15ml
- Pineapple juice30ml
- Grenadine10ml
- Angostura bitters1ml
- Soda water30ml
To top
Garnish: Pineapple wedge, Maraschino cherry
Method
- Add the gin, Cherry Heering, triple sec, Bénédictine, lime juice, pineapple juice, grenadine and bitters to a shaker with ice.
- Shake hard for 10–15 seconds until well chilled.
- Strain into a hurricane glass filled with fresh ice.
- Top with soda water and stir once, gently.
- Garnish with a pineapple wedge and a cherry.
Equipment
Don't have everything? Here's what works instead.
Cocktail shaker
Household swap: A jar with a very tight lid, shaken firmly, works for this many small measures.
Citrus juicer
Household swap: Squeeze the lime by hand into a small bowl to catch pips.
Missing an ingredient?
Each swap below says what it changes and how to correct for it, so you can decide whether you are making this drink or a neighbouring one.
Instead of Cherry Heering
Cherry Heering has no close substitute — its dry, spiced cherry flavour is central to what the drink is. If you have to improvise, extra grenadine with a dash of Angostura gets you a cherry note and some spice, but the result is sweeter and flatter and no longer really a Singapore Sling.
Make it better
- Measure every ingredient — with nine components in small quantities, an uneven pour on any one of them throws off the whole balance.
- Use fresh pineapple juice if you can; the canned or carton kind is noticeably sweeter and flattens the drink.
- Add the soda after shaking and straining, not before — carbonated liquid shouldn't go into a sealed shaker.
- Adjust sweetness gradually and taste as you go — it's easy to add more syrup, impossible to take it out.
Rescue this drink
- Tastes flat or one-note
- Check each measure against the recipe — this drink relies on several small liqueurs working together, and skipping or under-pouring even one flattens it.
- Too sweet
- Cut the grenadine to 5ml and add a touch more lime juice.
- Too tart
- Add a little more pineapple juice or grenadine to round it out.
- Goes flat quickly
- Add the soda water last, just before serving, and drink promptly — it loses fizz fast once mixed with the acidic base.
- It foams over when the mixer goes ingeneral guidance
- Something in the glass is nucleating the carbonation — usually fresh ice with frost on it, or a sugary residue on the side. Pour the mixer slowly down the inside of the glass onto a spoon rather than onto the ice, and add it last. A drink built the other way round loses most of its fizz before it reaches the table.
- Too sourgeneral guidance
- Add a little more sweetener (simple syrup or the cocktail's usual sweetening ingredient), a small amount at a time.
- Served too warmgeneral guidance
- Chill the glass, ice and every ingredient ahead of time — a warm pour is the fastest way to lose a cold drink's balance. For one serving, there's no real fix beyond rebuilding it properly chilled; for a batch, keep everything refrigerated until the moment of serving and add ice last.
- Over-diluted (tastes watery)general guidance
- Likely shaken too long, or with too much ice surface area. For one serving there's no fixing it after the fact — rebuild with fewer, larger ice cubes and a shorter shake. Planning a batch? Shorten the ice-contact time across the whole round, not just this glass.
- Under-diluted (tastes harsh or too concentrated)general guidance
- For one serving, stir in a few drops of chilled water to open it up. For a batch, extend the shake time slightly on the next round.
- No cocktail shakergeneral guidance
- A jar with a very tight lid, shaken firmly, works for this many small measures.
Make ahead & storage
Batch the base, finish at serving
Batch the 7 stable components days ahead and add fresh lime juice and soda water when you pour.
Add about 27% water to the batch to replace what the ice would otherwise contribute, or it will pour noticeably harsher than a fresh one.
- Fresh lime juice:
- Fresh citrus loses its aroma within hours and turns dull. Squeeze it on the day.
- Soda water:
- Carbonated — it goes flat in a bottle, and there is no way to put the fizz back.
What it tastes like
The taste, and what drives it
sweet, balanced, light, sparkling — a sour-structured drink served straight up, no ice.
Sweet
Dry → Sweet
Openly sweet, and balanced by something else rather than hidden.
What drives it: Grenadine — carries the most sugar into the glass.
Balanced
Soft → Sharp
Enough acidity to keep the drink awake without dominating it.
What drives it: Fresh lime juice — supplies the acidity.
Faintly bitter
Gentle → Bitter
A bitter edge you would only notice if you looked for it.
What drives it: Angostura bitters — provides the bitterness.
Light
Light → Rich
Light-bodied. It refreshes rather than satisfies, which is usually the intention.
What drives it: Pineapple juice — adds most of the weight.
Sparkling
Still → Sparkling
Carbonated, which lifts the aromatics and makes the drink taste drier than its sugar content alone would suggest.
What drives it: Soda water — carries the carbonation.
Moderate
Delicate → Bold
Moderate: assertive enough to hold its own, mild enough for a second.
What drives it: Gin — is the most concentrated thing in the glass.
What you smell first
- Citrus peelLeads
From Gin, Triple sec, Fresh lime juice
- Juniper and botanicals
From Gin
- Tropical fruit
From Pineapple juice
- Baking spice
From Cherry Heering liqueur, Bénédictine, Angostura bitters
- Stone fruit
From Cherry Heering liqueur
Every aroma here comes from the liquid itself; nothing is layered on top.
How it was worked out
Each reading comes from the recipe's own recorded taste scores combined with what each ingredient contributes, weighted by how much of it is in the glass. Almost everything in this drink has detailed ingredient data behind it.
How balance actually works →If it isn't right
What goes wrong with this drink, and why
Only the faults this particular recipe is actually prone to — each with the likely cause, the adjustment, and what the adjustment costs you.
It's too sweet
- Likely cause
- Grenadine is carrying the sugar here, and it is the easiest thing in the drink to over-pour — syrup clings to a jigger and a "splash" is rarely the same twice.
- What to change
- Cut grenadine by about a third and rebuild. If it is already made, a squeeze of citrus is faster than starting again.
- What that does
- The drink will read sharper as well as less sweet, because the acid stops being balanced. That is usually the intention, but it is a bigger change than it sounds.
It's too sour
- Likely cause
- Fresh lime juice varies more than any other ingredient in the drink. Limes differ by weeks of ripeness, and a sharp one can be half again as acidic as a mild one at the same measure.
- What to change
- Add sweetener a few millilitres at a time rather than diluting — you are correcting a ratio, not a concentration.
- What that does
- Sourness recedes and the drink gains a little weight. Overshoot and you will be reading the too-sweet entry above instead.
It tastes weak
- Likely cause
- Usually dilution rather than measurement: shaking adds water as it chills, and wet or small ice adds far more of it than cold, large ice does.
- What to change
- Use larger, colder ice and work faster. Adding more spirit fixes the symptom and unbalances everything else.
- What that does
- The drink gains definition without gaining sugar. It will also read as slightly sharper, which is what 'more presence' usually means in practice.
It's gone flat
- Likely cause
- Soda water loses gas to warmth, to agitation and to anything it can nucleate against — pulp, sugar crystals, a dry glass.
- What to change
- Chill the mixer properly, add it last, pour it against the inside wall of the glass, and stir once at most.
- What that does
- The bubbles last, which also makes the drink taste drier — carbonation contributes a real acidity of its own on top of the lift.
It's watery
- Likely cause
- Shaking adds water while it chills, and the two cannot be separated. Wet ice from a freezer door, or small cubes, will over-dilute before the drink is properly cold.
- What to change
- Use bigger, drier, colder ice and stop sooner. Chilling the glass first buys you time you would otherwise spend diluting.
- What that does
- More flavour concentration at the same temperature. Under-dilute instead and the drink will taste harsh — this is a target, not a direction.
It doesn't smell of anything
- Likely cause
- This drink's aroma comes from citrus peel and juniper and botanicals, carried in the liquid. Serving it too cold suppresses that: volatile compounds do not leave a very cold drink.
- What to change
- Let it sit for a minute before drinking, and use a glass that narrows towards the rim to concentrate what does escape.
- What that does
- More of the aroma escapes and the drink reads as more intense. The cost is temperature: a drink left to warm also dilutes faster, so this is a trade against how long it stays right.
Taste profile
- Sweetness
- 3/5
- Sourness
- 2/5
- Bitterness
- 1/5
- Strength
- 2/5
- Fruitiness
- 4/5
- Freshness
- 3/5
- Creaminess
- 0/5
- Smokiness
- 0/5
Nutrition & alcohol
Estimate onlyNine ingredients across several liqueurs of differing strengths make this one of the harder drinks to estimate precisely.- Calories
- 205 kcal
- Sugar
- 20 g
- Carbohydrates
- 23 g
- Alcohol units (UK)
- 2.1
- US standard drinks
- 1.18
- ABV
- 8.7%
- Serving size
- 240 ml
Show calculation assumptions
Source: Calculated from standard measures
Calorie breakdown: ~115 kcal from alcohol, ~90 kcal from sugar and mixers.
Likely range: 154–256 kcal, reflecting the confidence level above — not a lab-measured figure.
Based on 30ml gin, 15ml Cherry Heering at 24% ABV, 7.5ml triple sec at 30% ABV and 7.5ml Bénédictine at 40% ABV, plus juice, grenadine and a soda top.
These figures are estimates, not laboratory measurements — individual tolerance to alcohol varies. See our responsible drinking guidance.
Variations
Simplified Sling
Drop the Bénédictine and triple sec for a shorter ingredient list — less complex, but still recognisably a Sling.
What kind of drink this is
The structure behind the recipe
A shaken build: a sour-structured gin-based drink, served straight up, no ice — sparkling in the mouth.
Sour-structured
Something sour and something sweet held in balance over a base — the structure behind the whole sour family and everything descended from it.
Base
Gin
Spirit in the largest measure — read as the base.
Modifier
Cherry Heering liqueur
Liqueurs modify: they flavour and usually sweeten at the same time.
Triple sec
Liqueurs modify: they flavour and usually sweeten at the same time.
Bénédictine
Liqueurs modify: they flavour and usually sweeten at the same time.
Pineapple juice
A short measure of low-acid juice — flavours rather than lengthens or sours.
Soda water
A short measure of mixer — too small to lengthen the drink, so it flavours it instead.
Sour element
Fresh lime juice
A short, sharp measure — recorded acidity 5/5, and nothing sharper is poured short, so this is the sour element.
Sweet element
Grenadine
A syrup — its whole job in the drink is to sweeten and to add a little body along with it.
Bitter element
Angostura bitters
Bitters: measured in dashes, used to season the drink rather than to flavour it outright.
Drinks built this way are collected as the Sour family.
9 components' roles areworked out from the ingredient's category and recorded taste attributes rather than set by hand — the reasoning is shown above so you can disagree with it.
Technique
shaken
Ice is thrown against the liquid and against itself, chipping fragments off and driving air through the mix. Chilling, dilution and aeration all happen at once and cannot be separated.
A lighter, briefly frothy body and a cloudy appearance that settles as it stands. The aeration blunts alcoholic heat, which is why a shaken drink tastes softer than a stirred one of the same strength.
What it ruins: Clarity, and any carbonation. A shaken spirits-only drink arrives cloudy with ice shards floating in it, and shaking anything fizzy is the one rule with no exceptions.
Everything about shaking →How the technique works →Dilution
During mixing, then strained
Water from ice typically makes up around 30% of the finished drink for a shaken build (commonly 25–35%). Dilution is an ingredient here, not a side effect.
Why dilution is an ingredient →Served
Straight up, no ice
Hurricane glass · 240ml
Chilled during mixing and then strained away from the ice, so it arrives at its coldest and most concentrated and warms from the first sip — which is why 240ml is the right size for it.
Texture and aroma
Carbonation lifts aromatics and adds a slight acidity of its own, which is why a long drink can taste drier than its sugar content suggests.
These components are doing aromatic work: you meet them at the nose before the first sip, and they shape how everything underneath reads.
Where to go from here
Each of these is here because of something specific about this drink, not as a standard set of links.
Bar techniques worth the trouble
This one asks for real technique. The advanced path covers the methods behind it and is honest about which are worth the trouble.
Where this fits in a home bar
Gin is bottle 1 in the order that unlocks the most drinks — buying it opens up 10 recipes beyond the ones before it.
Where it comes from
Origin and family
Origin of the Singapore Sling
Created at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore in the early 20th century; several competing versions of the recipe exist.
The Raffles Hotel's own recipe has changed over the decades and several 'original' versions are documented; this recipe follows a widely used modern standard.
Family
Sour2 parts spirit · 1 part citrus · 1 part sweetener — shaken, strained, served up or over ice.
On drinks history
Cocktail origin stories are frequently repeated and rarely evidenced. Our history section separates what is documented from what is folklore rather than picking whichever version reads best.
History and culture →Try this next
- Rum Punch
Rum Punch
You may like this because it shares a tropical-forward profile with the Singapore Sling, but uses rum instead of gin.
Pornstar Martini
You may like this because it shares a fruity-forward profile with the Singapore Sling, but uses vodka instead of gin.
- Hurricane
Hurricane
You may like this because it shares a tropical-forward profile with the Singapore Sling, but uses rum instead of gin.
Questions people ask
- No Cherry Heering — what can I use?
- See the substitution guidance above — it's a genuine cherry-liqueur replacement, not a generic swap, since Cherry Heering's flavour is distinctive.
- Why does mine taste flat?
- See "Rescue this drink" above — with nine real ingredients, a Singapore Sling goes flat fastest of anything on this site once the soda water loses its fizz, so build and serve it quickly.
- Why so many ingredients?
- It's a genuinely layered classic — see the ingredients list above. Every one of the nine contributes something the others don't, which is part of why it's harder to balance than most drinks here.
Use up your ingredients
Bought a bottle just for this? Here's what else it's good for.
Related tools
Scale this for a party
Work out bottles, mixers, ice and total alcohol units for any number of guests.
Recipe confidence
Historic recipe with genuinely disputed 'authentic' proportions; this follows a commonly cited modern version.