The Sling

As noted in Dale DeGroff's superlative The Essential Cocktail, the class of alcoholic beverages known as slings have been around longer than the venerable cocktail itself: a sling is simply strong liquor plus water plus sweetener, so a cocktail was a bitters sling until at least 1806. According to Jerry Thomas in 1862 (by way of the helpful Musings on Cocktails), a sling was a teaspoon of powdered sugar, half a glass of water, half a glass of spirits (probably whiskey or a Holland gin), and a lump of ice. The sling did long and honorable service in a number of forms as it morphed into the fruitier and currently better-known Singapore Sling, while the rest of the sling family languished in obscurity.

Tonight we mostly followed DeGroff's recipe, with a few necessary and a few improvised substitutions. This makes a very light and summery drink--an alternative gin and tonic, perhaps for those who really can't stand quinine.

• 1 1/2 oz gin (we used Beefeater's)
• 1/2 oz sweet vermouth (we used Lillet, more by dogma than anything else)
• 1 oz fresh-squeezed lemon juice (we used lime cause that's what we had)
• 3/4 oz simple syrup
• Dash of Angostura
• top with club soda
• garnish: lemon

lemon garnish by feleghazy