Singapore · Cocktails · Bucket List · About S$53 a Drink
I had seen a few YouTube videos about Long Bar, and a couple of colleagues who had been there had told me about the peanuts and the pink drink. So once a work trip put me in Singapore for the first time, I did some research, asked around, and made sure this was on the list. Going to Long Bar at Raffles Hotel, the place where the Singapore Sling was invented, was the one drink stop I scheduled in advance. I went with two colleagues, we ordered three, and we sat there in the middle of a Singapore afternoon doing the exact thing thousands of other travelers had done in the same room. Spoiler, the drink is good. The reason to go is the room and the story.
This article is not sponsored. We paid for the drinks ourselves, and no one at Long Bar knew we were coming.
The Place: Long Bar, Raffles Hotel Singapore
Long Bar lives on the second floor of the Raffles Hotel arcade at 1 Beach Road. The original bar was in a stretch called Cad’s Alley more than a hundred years ago, and a Hainanese bartender named Ngiam Tong Boon invented the Singapore Sling there. The current room is a recreation, not the original space, but it is built to feel like a colonial era hotel bar from a hundred years ago. Dark wood, black and white tile floor, and the visual signature of Long Bar, those palm leaf paddle ceiling fans that sweep back and forth across the room like they are powered by a single rope through the ceiling. (They are not, but it looks that way.)
We were dropped off at the main entrance, walked across the hotel courtyard with its white colonnades and palm trees, and headed up the stairs to the bar. No reservation. There was a line. We ended up waiting about thirty minutes to get in, which sounds rough but was honestly fine. There is seating in the waiting area, the air conditioning is on, and the wall plaques about the history of the cocktail give you something to read while you stand there. By the time we sat down at our table, I had read the entire origin story of the Singapore Sling on the way in, which is not a bad way to start.
Once we were seated, we ordered three Singapore Slings, no food, and the drinks were in front of us pretty quickly. The room was busy, tourists, a handful of business travelers, a couple of older couples clearly working through a Singapore checklist. This was a short stop, in and out for the cocktail, no walk through the rest of the hotel. I would not try to rush it once you sit down, though. If you only have thirty minutes total, you are basically throwing one back. Better to give yourself a bit of time, sit, listen to the room, eat the peanuts, and enjoy the drink you came for.
One quick note. I was with two colleagues who had been to Long Bar before, and they gave me the exact warning this article is about to give you. It is going to be a sweet drink, but it is a must do when you are in Singapore. They were right on both counts.
The Cocktail: A Singapore Sling That Tastes Like Fruit Punch (In a Good Way)
The Singapore Sling lands in front of you in a tall branded Long Bar glass with a thick wedge of fresh pineapple and a dark cherry on a wooden pick. The drink itself is a deep rose pink, the kind of pink that looks like it was made for a postcard. Gin, cherry brandy, pineapple juice, lime, Cointreau, Bénédictine, and a touch of grenadine, depending on which version of the recipe you trust. What it tastes like, honestly, is a really well made tropical fruit punch. Sweet, balanced, not alcohol forward at all. The thing that surprised me most on the first sip was how easy it goes down. You think you are going to be working through a heavy, sticky cocktail and you are not. If somebody handed you this drink without telling you what was in it, you would probably finish it before you realized how much gin you had just had.
I would say the cocktail is exactly what you want it to be in this setting. Sweet, fruit forward, easy to drink in a hot climate. Singapore basically has summer all year round, so a tropical, slightly icy, pink drink in a wood paneled room with the paddle fans going overhead is, I think, the experience. It is not a sipper that you hold and analyze. It is a vacation in a glass.
The Peanuts
One thing Long Bar is famous for, and one thing my colleagues had told me about ahead of time, is the burlap sack of peanuts they put on every table. They are free, they are warm, they are salty, and you are actively encouraged to drop the shells right on the floor. I had seen this in videos and figured it had probably been quietly retired by now for hygiene reasons. It has not. People were tossing shells under their tables, the floor crunched a little when you walked, and nobody on staff blinked. It is one of the few places in the world where making a small mess is part of the experience.
I loaded up on peanuts. By the time we had finished the cocktails, the area around my chair looked like a peanut shell crime scene. The salty, warm peanuts are a perfect pairing for a sweet drink, and the fact that the sack just keeps coming is a small colonial era touch that fits the room.
The Price
I will keep including the price when I remember to take a picture of the receipt, because I think it matters and most places will not tell you. So here it is. One Singapore Sling at Long Bar is S$44 before service charge and tax. Three of us drinking, no food, came out to S$159.27 with the 10% service charge and 9% GST baked in. That is roughly S$53 a drink all in, or about US$39 each at the exchange rate when I was there.
Now I want to be honest about something. This is a do it once price. Later in the same trip, I had Singapore Slings at other bars in Singapore for about a quarter of what Long Bar charges, and they were just as good as cocktails. So if you are after the drink itself, you can get it cheaper basically anywhere else in the city. What you are paying for at Long Bar is not really the drink. It is the room the drink was invented in, the paddle fans, the peanuts on the floor, the bar with the green hand crank shakers behind it, and the small thrill of drinking the original of a cocktail you have heard about your whole life. Worth doing once at the full price. Worth doing again somewhere else for a quarter of it.
What we paid: Our total at Long Bar, with service and GST, was S$159.27. That covered three Singapore Slings, no food. About S$53 a drink all in.
If I Brought the Family
This was a work trip, so Vika and the kids were not with me. But I always think about whether a place would work with the family, because that is how we usually travel. Long Bar would absolutely work for Vika and me on an adult trip to Singapore. It is a one cocktail stop, not a long sit, and it is the kind of place you go because of the story, not the menu. The room I was in was all adults, no kids that I noticed, and no posted age signage that I remember either. I think Josh and Emily would still enjoy stopping in. The colonial hotel feel, the paddle fans, the bartenders at the visible station, and an unlimited sack of peanuts you can throw shells from would land for them. It is a thirty minute experience, you order them a juice and a peanut sack of their own, then you are back out in Singapore.
The Verdict
The Singapore Sling at Long Bar is more about the where than the what. The cocktail is tasty, balanced, fruit forward, and easy to drink in a tropical climate. But what you are actually paying for is the room a Hainanese bartender invented it in, the paddle fans, the peanuts on the floor, and the small thrill of drinking the original of a cocktail you have heard about your whole adult life. If you are in Singapore for any amount of time, you go do this once. Then you walk back out into the heat with a slightly sticky pink mustache and a story.
Want to see a few clips from inside Long Bar? We posted some short videos from this visit on Instagram. Head over to @travelandfoodguy and check them out.
Have you tried the Singapore Sling at Long Bar, or do you have a Singapore bucket list cocktail or restaurant we should hit on a future trip? Drop it in the comments. I would love to plan the next Singapore visit around it.
