The Cocktail Issue: Lukshon's Singapore Sling + A Recipe

Anne Fishbein

Lukshon's Singapore Sling

This past week's cover story was the cocktail issue, or L.A.'s Best Cocktails, in which Jonathan Gold considers, as you can probably infer from the title, the best cocktails in Los Angeles. To celebrate the happy event, we're giving you a cocktail a day here on Squid Ink. Yesterday's drink was Campanile's Dry Rye Manhattan; today's is the Singapore Sling from Lukshon. Here's what Gold has to say about the drink (below), and if you turn the page, we've gotten the recipe so you can make it at home. Who says you have to read your morning paper with a cup of coffee. Cheers.

Singapore Sling:

If you have ever been to Singapore, undoubtedly you have made a pilgrimage to the Long Bar at the Raffles Hotel, marveled at the elaborate network of ceiling fans and pulleys, a steampunk wet dream, and sucked down a nasty, sweet punch called a Singapore Sling -- a concoction of gin, Benedictine, cherry Heering and pineapple juice, which I'm pretty sure wasn't shot out of a gun when Somerset Maugham used to drink them in the 1930s. The drink was, of course, a staple in 1970s singles bars, many of which also tried to mimic the décor of the Long Bar. Perhaps the most authentic version here should be served in Marina del Rey and properly savored while wearing a leisure suit. But Lukshon, Sang Yoon's new small-plates restaurant, is at its best when re-envisioning Western versions of Asian food through classically trained Asian eyes, and the Singapore Sling here, pared to its bittersweet tropical essentials, is a revelation. Maugham, I suspect, would approve.

Singapore Sling
From: Adapted from Lukshon restaurant; recipe courtesy of Sang Yoon.
Note: If you, unlike Sang Yoon, do not make your own grenadine and bitters, you should feel no shame in using what you buy at the store.
Makes: 1 drink

2 oz. Plymouth gin
1/2 oz. cherry Heering
1/4 oz. Combier orange
1/4 oz. Benedictine
4 oz. pineapple juice
3/4 oz. lime
1/4 oz. house-made grenadine
4 drops housemade bitters

1. Fill a shaker halfway with ice, pour in the ingredients, shake and strain into a chilled glass.