Facts | Ingredients | Tasting Notes | How to Drink | Use in Cocktails | Product Range | History | FAQs What is Monkey 47? Monkey 47 Schwarzwald Sloe Gin is hand-crafted by the same small team of expert distillers as the brand's classic recipe, right in the heart of the Black Forest, Germany. Mix this – with the carefree abandon of a monkey if you can manage it – into a Sloe Gin Negroni or Sloe Gin Fizz. Enjoyable, sure, but it also worked as a prophylactic against one of the most debilitating diseases in the tropics. The monkey - part of the name and logo - has a more complex background which I'll get back to in a minute.

Following his stint in the army Collins combined settled in the Black Forest and created a “Schwarzwald” Dry Gin, which was served at his guesthouse until the 1970s.Keller combines traditional maceration and distillation techniques, as well as vapor infusing certain ingredients, to gather precise amounts of the more volatile botanicals and accentuate more sublime flavors. Having built an impressive new distillery in the heart of the Black Forest and grown Monkey 47 into a global icon, Stein sold the brand to Pernod Ricard in 2016 who have continued to grow the gin into an established player in almost every gin drinking country around the world. For that reason, we shouldn’t be mistaken for typical “spirits producers” or “liquor entrepreneurs”; we are schnapps distillers to the core and, like a perfumer, constantly on the hunt for aromas and fragrances. Sloe drupes are part of the plum family and are often confused with berries, but they are in fact a fruit.

Babies being dropped, rotting corpses dumped into cheap coffins, houses collapsing, half-naked women slumped senseless in the street.The Monkey 47 Schwarzwald Dry Gin is the “standard,” though it drinks nothing like any standard gin I’ve seen. After serving honorably in World War II, Commander Montgomery "Monty" Collins of the Royal Air Force was discharged in 1951 and moved to the Northern Black Forest where he opened a country guest home nicknamed "The Wild Monkey. Monkey 47 have taken their classic gin, made with 47 botanicals, and combined it with berries that have been handpicked from the Black Forest region. Many years later, while renovation work was being done on the guesthouse, the small box was found in the basement.

Picked after the first frost of winter, these fruits have a sweet flavour and traditionally used to create liqueurs all around the world.The wide variety of herbs and spices in the region gave him plenty of opportunities to develop a unique recipe. Would never have a “normal gin” neat due to its sharpness, but sloe gin can be enjoyed with or without mixer/tonic. In 2015, they unveiled a new distillery, where they made the unusual decision of adding in more stills, but instead of bigger and bulkier they opted to go smaller in size. Initially made for medicinal purposes, gin gets most of its flavor from the juniper berries added after the distillation process. Dropping from 47 percent as pure gin to just 29 percent as sloe imparts a difference in flavor and mouthfeel.

The product and allergen information provided has been supplied by the producer/manufacturer of the products. As I type I have a Bombay Sapphire and tonic beside me, but last year I went on a “gin quest”, which included Monkey 47.

Most of the time, that's an additional ingredient but sometimes also a difference in the production process. The aftertaste is a flavor mix of herbal mix with notes of mint, blackberries, cubeb pepper, and lemon.