Pour Some Sugar on the Drink

Saucyman, What is a sling...from a bartender not an ER Doctor? Sippin’ in a hammock

Rum has been Slung. So have Gin and vodka. Geographically, the San Juan's and most notably Singapore also Sling. I thought the answer would be in the form of a Bondsian, James Bondsian, type of shaken not stirred type of designation - that a sling became a sling because of the way the ingredients were joined together. My second guess, equally as wrong, was that a sling was a style of glass or tankard. And Sling-glass does sound a little too Billy Bob Thorton to be probable.

Just as the Mojito, Cosmopolitan, and Martini are all drinks; in colonial times, the young nation was awash with punches, slings, flips and toddies.

A punch can be hold or cold, spiked with either wine or liquor or be just as punchy sans alcohol. A Toddy is sweetened, spiced and hot, although, there is a contrarian drink called the cold toddy. Historically, a Flip was beer sweetened with sugar or molasses and fortified with rum – to which a hot poker, sometimes called a flip, sometimes called a loggerhead, was inserted causing the drink to bubble and spit. The Mixmaster may have lost the flip from his repertoire but as a population we can still be at loggerheads.

According to William Grimes in Straight Up or On the Rocks, a sling was originally a drink of half water and half rum served in Colonial America. Grog was a relatively sober 2 or 3 parts water to rum. Currently, a sling connotes a drink containing hard alcohol, sugar and either still or bubbly water. Usually juice is included in sling recipes but it isn’t a requirement. Singapore may object but the mint julep is the most known sling, and does so without being all showy and putting the word in the title.

Closer to the gilded age than founding times, a Cocktail denoted a drink containing bitters, occasionally the mixture was called a bittered sling. Currently, cocktail refers to almost anything containing alcohol mixed with at least one other ingredient but that definition does little to explain the fruit and Molotov varieties.

So sling away, I am all for reviving archaic words, despite the fact my 4 year campaign to
return wee to everyday usage has not exactly gone viral, maybe now is the time for sling to return to, at the very least, the barkeeping lexicon.