The Spiffy Dapper

Blooming from humble hole-in-the-wall beginnings at Boat Quay into sizeable quarters along Amoy Street near Raffles Place, Singapore’s monstrosity of a monument to bad taste is once again plying its trade at a brisk pace to the city’s dapper drunks. The long and sinuous story of The Spiffy Dapper’s inception and execution is intriguing, but we’ll leave it to the expert bartenders to bore you with it – they’re as capable of sending you to sleep with their tall tales as they are whipping up a storm in a cup come cocktail hour (which here is every hour from late afternoon to later than late). Don’t forget, for teetotal balance the Spiffy Dapper masquerades as Dapper Coffee in the day, serving breakfast and lunch besides (or, sure, with) bourbon. Simply put, The Spiffy Dapper is a fully-furnished fixture in Singapore’s sling-armed bar scene.

After Dapper Coffee’s breakfast, brunch and lunch persona undresses and adopts its liquored up guise, cocktails are the name of the game at Amoy Street’s The Spiffy Dapper, so throw the dice and fold for a Sheikh On The Level, a Rudy Valentino-inspired creation consisting of a Turkish black tea sour finished off with cardamom, or something special and on the rocks like Blanton’s Special Reserve bourbon or Berkshire Mountain’s New England corn whiskey for the straight sippers. This Singapore laugh riot of a drinking establishment has some serious (if not earnest) credentials backing it up: proprietor and head retard George, cut his teeth at The Cufflink Club, and loves to espouse his three theories of balance (that’s standing upright to the layman), cocktail creation, and a vaguely theorised concept of art as the founding myths of his admittedly delicious drinks, to anyone that happens to be within earshot of Raffles Place and his dive bar baby.

The attraction here is, though, the rather incredible selection of boutique, rare run spirits lining the shoddily carpentered shelves at The Spiffy Dapper Amoy Street headquarters. We mentioned a couple before, but try your hand at gins from Dorothy Parker, Half Moon Orchard, Bristol Bay, Tru, F.E.W., Koval, and Pierde Almas, bourbon from Willett Pot, and whisky from Elijah Craig and Alaska Distillery, among many others, and then try and claim that this Singapore cocktail bar, close to the delights of Raffles Places, isn’t among the best the city has to offer. Successfully claim that while standing on one foot and touching your nose and you’ll probably have your blurry portrait hanging among the Bollywood curios, or wake to find you’ve landed a job helping The Spiffy Dapper with its mission to battle Singapore’s spotless public health track record via a strategic campaign of shameless, professional alcoholism.