Cherry brandy (Straits Sling)

I’m actually using the wrong term for our new ingredient here, but that’s on purpose. Cherry flavoured brandy is the correct name, but there are not many people who will go through the trouble of using that in every instance. Most people don’t even know that they are actually different kind of drinks, one being a liqueur and the other a liquor.

So I’ll just stick to cherry brandy for the new liqueur, because that’s more useful in casual conversation. All the more reason for this is that cherry brandy also has an alternative name: kirsch or kirschwasser. Kirsch is a cherry eau de vie, unsweetened and dry. It’s also being used for cocktails, but it’s not the stuff I’m aiming for now.

One cherry brandy of note is Cherry Heering. It’s a Danish product and the unchallenged top of the cherry brandies. It is aged in wooden barrels for 5 years before being bottled.

As it happens, right at this moment it’s possible to enter the ‘Peter F. Heering Sling Award’ that’s organized by Heering. It challenges you to come up with a recipe that’s inspired by the Singapore Sling. They will accept entries until May 25.

Which brings us to slings…

Straits Sling

But not the Singapore Sling. The Singapore Sling leans more towards a Tiki style drink and has a legendary status. It ranks in Imbibe’s 25 Most Influential Cocktails of the Past Century and is the signature drink of the Raffles Hotel in Singapore.

The Singapore Sling might have descended from the Straits Sling though, which is recorded as early as 1922 in Robert Vermeire’s Cocktails and How to Mix Them. It’s also found in The Savoy Cocktail Book, although not in the ´Cocktails´ section but in the ´Slings´ section.

The Straits Sling is truer to the concept of a sling than the Singapore Sling, although the definition of a sling has changed considerably over the years. It leans towards a fizz, although the sweetener might be a liqueur instead of sugar or syrup, lemon and ice cubes is optional and soda water might be normal water instead. In short, this means that every long drink that has a spirit, something sweet (aside from the mixer), (soda) water and that can’t be placed in another cocktail family might be categorized as a sling. Not much use as a definition, unless you actually plan to device your own kind of sling.

Ted Haigh makes a case for using kirsch instead of cherry brandy in the Straits Sling when he presents the recipe in his book Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. I have to agree, based on his arguments, that this might be the original way that the Straits Sling was conceived. But still I choose to go with cherry brandy here. I don’t mind a bit of sweetness and kirsch, being colorless, doesn’t help the color much.

Still, feel free to try out both variants and decide which you prefer (or adjust the recipe to ‘the mood of the moment’).

4 parts gin

1 part cherry brandy

1 part Bénédictine

2 parts lemon juice

2 dashes orange bitters

2 dashes Angostura bitters

soda water

glass:  tall glass or a stemmed tall glass (like a sour glass or champagne flute)

Shake everything except the soda water with ice and strain into the glass.

Fill with soda.

Garnish as you please.

Adding a straw is entirely optional, but is quite handy when the garnish is a bit unstable on the rim.

Using a stemmed glass might work out like this: