Colonial Echos

We rather smugly thought we’d beaten the jet lag and had gotten our bodies into its new routine smoothly. However 4:00am in the morning found us both wide awake so we resigned ourselves to a few more wakeful hours until we would get up for breakfast … 8 hours later though we woke up decidedly confused at 12:30 in the afternoon!

Determined not to waste any time we headed out as soon as we could by taxi to that most famous epitome of colonial rule, Raffles Hotel.

As we glided up to the front entrance we were met by an Indian concierge dressed in full Raj regalia. As he opened the door of the cab the sense of Imperial decadence I was feeling at this point was somewhat dented when he asked if we were guests, upon which we duly replied ‘No’ and we’re then shown round the back.

We had come to Raffles to soak up a little of the atmosphere that must have pervaded Singapore when it was a British colony and of course drink the famous ‘Singapore Sling’ cocktail in the Long Bar.

We weren’t disappointed and it wasn’t hard to imagine the British upper classes along with other Europeans languidly enjoying the comforts of the hotel, their footsteps and conversations echoing down the cool marble corridors and upper walkways of the hotel.

The Singapore sling was developed by the barman at the Raffles Long bar in 1915. I’ve tried a few in different cocktail bars but the one mixed at Raffles is without doubt the smoothest and best I’ve ever tasted. It’s hardly surprising though as our barman told us that they’d served approximately 150-200 on that day alone … so practice really does make perfect!