"One of his travel companions, cocktail historian David Wondrich , told him he had to try the bar's White Lady and a Million Dollar Cocktail-a gin sour made with vermouth, pineapple, grenadine and egg white. The former, Evans had, naturally, heard of, but the latter was new to him. Evans says the fluffy cocktail "had a lot of the same flavor components as a Singapore Sling ," with its "cherry-hinted," tropical flavor profile."
"Others, perhaps because of its similarities to the Singapore Sling, date it to the 1910s and Ngiam Tong Boon of the Raffles Hotel. It appears in the Savoy Cocktail Book in 1930, but is given a bit more context in Charles H. Baker's Gentleman's Companion , published in 1939. In this entry, Baker credits the recipe to Shideaki Saito, "No. 1 Bar Boy" at the Imperial Hotel, Tokyo. It features pineapple syrup instead of juice, plus lemon and cream."
Brian Evans encountered the Million Dollar Cocktail at Bar High Five in Ginza and later included it on Teruko's opening menu at the Hotel Chelsea, where the program emphasizes classics, Japanese spirits and umami flavors. The Million Dollar is a gin sour made with vermouth, pineapple (syrup or juice in variants), grenadine and egg white, offering a cherry-hinted, tropical profile similar to the Singapore Sling. The cocktail's Japanese connections date to the 1890s through figures such as Louis Eppinger, Ngiam Tong Boon, and bar staff Shideaki Saito and Nomura, with recipes appearing in the Savoy Cocktail Book and Baker's Gentleman's Companion. Teruko's version uses Nikka Coffey gin for Asian citrus and sansho pepper notes.
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