My office used to be just a few doors down from The Raffles Hotel in Beach Road in the days before the grand renovation, when the hotel was going charmingly to seed. The Long Bar used to be my local. In the Long Bar you throw your discarded peanut shells on the floor so that by the end of the day they positively cover every available inch of flooring under the bar. It’s the custom. One custom I fancy they have tried hard to stamp out is the rats which would occasionally scurry across your feet as you had your dinner.
Raffles is the birthplace of the now internationally renowned Singapore Sling. The drink was first created by Ngiam Tong Boon, a Hainanese-Chinese bartender at the Long Bar in 1915. Now, as a much grander and considerably more expensive grand dame of Singapore hotels, it is celebrating its125th anniversary. A Singapore Sling has gone up in price from $5 to $26, and leading Swiss watch manufacture Jaeger-LeCoultre have issued their classic double-sided Reverso Limited Edition watch.
Flip the Raffles 125th Anniversary Reverso over and ‘Raffles Hotel 1887-2012 Singapore’ is engraved on the casing. This special edition piece is available in the Reverso Grande Taille for men, and Grande Reverso Lady Ultra Thin for women models.
The gents’ model is powered by the hand-wound calibre 822 movement while the ladies’ model features the quartz calibre 657. It’s all a big change from those far off days when Raffles souvenirs amounted to just a beach towel, a keyring or a polo shirt.
