Eccentric Flower:201007/Singapore Lemonade

In hot weather I tend to favor a lot of sharp citrus flavors in my drinks (and also sometimes salty flavors, especially if I have been sweating a lot, which is why this is when the Non-Blender Non-Frozen Margarita (which is a recipe for another day) comes into its own).

This is essentially a variation on a "gin sling," which is what one calls a gin sour for some reason lost to antiquity. (A gin sour based on lime juice is a gimlet; a gin sour based on lemon juice is called a gin sling. Neither is ever called a gin sour, just as a brandy sour is never a brandy sour - it's a Sidecar. Go figure.)

As you may have deduced by now, if you are observant, I don't like adding sugar explicitly to cocktails. My tolerance for sweetness is so low that I instead prefer to add some liqueur or other sweet booze (or a fruit syrup, like Rose's Lime Juice) and that's all the sweetness I need. In fact, I temper the setup below with as much as a half ounce of orange bitters. You can choose to leave them out entirely or add them to taste. It may also depend on how sweet the particular limoncello you use is.

If you have a bottle of pure lemon oil - we keep it around because I am incapable of squeezing the drop of oil out of a "twist" - by all means use it but be careful. More than a drop or two will make anything you put it in taste like Pledge furniture polish.

Singapore Lemonade

To serve one:

3 ounces dry gin
1 ounce limoncello
1-2 drops pure lemon oil or a generous dose of fresh lemon zest
(Optional) Orange bitters to taste, anywhere from zero to lots

Shake well over ice until extremely cold.

I am lucky enough to have a small supply of homemade limoncello, constructed by a friend of mine. I need to petition him for a fresh supply, as I'm running out. Limoncello is often best when made at home; but there are any number of good commercial ones. I always store it in the freezer.

You can easily turn this into a long drink (AKA a highball) by taking the mixture above, pouring it into a long tall glass instead of your cocktail glass, adding some ice cubes, filling the glass with club soda, and giving it a couple of stirs. Not all drinks convert successfully this way, but this one does.

Historical Note

Despite the name, the above has no relation to a Singapore Sling, it just inspires me to think about British expatriates sitting on the porch at Raffles sipping it on a sullenly hot afternoon. An actual Singapore Sling is a bizarre-yet-inexplicably-famous drink involving way too many ingredients, including one which I really don't care for in any context (pineapple juice), and one of which I don't believe harmonizes well with anything else on earth (Bénédictine).

If you are crazy, like very sweet drinks, have all these ingredients lying around and need to use them up, or some combination of the three, here is the International Bartenders' Association official recipe for a Singapore Sling (grammarians: note that the sling in "gin sling" is generic but the sling in "Singapore Sling" is proper), which is given in proportions rather than quantities:

8 parts gin
4 parts Cherry Heering (which is a cherry brandy and not quite as sweet as cherry liqueur)
1 part Cointreau
1 part Bénédictine
2 parts grenadine
16 parts pineapple juice
6 parts fresh lemon juice
1 dash Angostura bitters

Shake the hell out of this drink; it is important it have a nice thick layer of foam on top when served, apparently. You also want to get it quite cold in order to make its sticky sweetness tolerable. Garnish with pineapple and cherry if you must.

Ever notice how bar recipes often say "fresh lemon juice" but don't bother to say "fresh" in front of pineapple juice or orange juice? That's because those juices are acceptable from a carton or can, but bottled reconstituted lemon or lime juice is fit only for cooking. A word to the wise.

Despite the sweetness, this is a pretty strong drink; strong enough that I wouldn't insist that it had three ounces of base spirit per serving (my standard). So we could work with 1 part = 1 ounce, in which case the recipe above would serve four, and a single serving would be

2 ounces gin
1 ounce Cherry Heering
1/4 ounce Cointreau
1/4 ounce Bénédictine
1/2 ounce grenadine
4 ounces pineapple juice
1 1/2 ounces lemon juice

It may be useful here to know that 1 ounce = 6 teaspoons = 2 tablespoons, although that will not make it any easier to measure a quarter of an ounce accurately. Note also that this will end you up with about ten ounces of liquid (add in a little for melting ice); so if you decide to try this, choose your glassware accordingly.

If you do try it, let me know what you think.