Monkey 47 Schwarzwald Gin
Written by Brian Donnelly, CSS, WSET III
““Monkey 47 is the greatest Gin I have ever tasted. It’s as good as it gets. If ever a Gin deserves 100 points, it’s that.””
History
Alexander Stein, a former executive from Nokia, along with highly acclaimed distiller Christoph Keller, set out in 2008 to replicate an extraordinary gin recipe from the Black Forest. This legend stemmed from Montgomery “Monty” Collins, a former Royal Air Force Wing Commander, who had settled in the Black Forest in 1951 to open a country guesthouse after retiring from the military.
Homesick for his native England, Montgomery crafted a gin-based off British distilling tradition, an exotic of flavor from his time spent in India, and the purity and nativeness of theBlack Forest. He named both his guesthouse and his Black Forest gin “The Wild Monkey,” (Zum wilden Affen), after a monkey, named Max, he had met while rebuilding the Berlin Zoo following the war. “As a British gentleman and new landlord, Collins was not about to give up certain long-standing traditions of the empire – chief among them a good glass of gin.”
In 2013, the Black Forest Distillers purchased a local farmstead in Schaberhof, just south of Loßburg, and about 62 miles (100 km) south of Stuttgart. The farmstead was built in 1840, and the Black Forest Distillers rebuilt the estate in 2015 and named it, of course, The Wild Monkey Distillery. While the Schaberhof farmstead was under construction, Monkey 47 was produced at the Stählemühle distillery in nearby Hegau.
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Water
All the water used for Monkey 47 comes exclusively from the Black Forest, which has an extraordinarily high quality of water, soft and clean, with low levels of salt and other minerals.
The Still
Every drop of Monkey 47 Gin is distilled at The Wild Monkey distillery, which is only about 50 feet by 100 feet (15 meters by 30 meets). After more than two years of designing and manufacturing, the German-based coppersmith, Arnold Holstein, created four custom 100 liter Carter-Head Stills, each equipped with a two gin basket, or percolation trays. Each still bears the name of well-known primates: King Louie, Cheetah, Herr Nilsson, and Miss Baker. The distillery chose to reduce the size of their stills to optimize the surface ratio of copper, and fine-tune the ability to extract the desired flavor from the botanicals during distillation. Monkey 47 has a complicated production process, involving maceration, distillation, percolation, and oxidation.
Maceration
First, all 47 botanicals are steeped for 36 hours in a combination of rectified neutral distillate, and soft Black Forest spring water. The distillate is 192 proof (96% ABV) but is made from sugar beer molasses sourced from France, rather than grain or wheat. The steeping ingredients are kept around 68°F (20°C).
Distillation & Percolation
Next, the macerated distillate is distilled just once using steam extraction to channel the alcoholic vapors through the fresh botanicals using the specially designed Carter-Head still. Steam extraction, also known as percolation, enables the master distiller to selectively regulate the distillate and coax out its notes with a high degree of precision. During distilling, low pressure is placed on the distillate. The temperature is risen slowly, before being gently cooled. This is incredibly time-consuming, but this technique allows subtler elements, such as the floral notes, to surface during the distillation process. Each distillation batch only yields 25 liters of gin, and the heads and tails are sold off for commercial and industrial use.
Oxidization
Finally, after distillation, the condensed distillate is combined from the different stills and place in 1,000-liter clay vessels for 100 days to harmonize through oxidation. This enables the new gin to develop unparalleled suppleness and balance. Apart from a sheet filter, Monkey 47 is left entirely unfiltered to preserve its full range of unique and complex aromas.
The Botanicals
Monkey contains 47 different botanicals but is famous for its crisp citrus flavor profile. That can be linked directly to the peels of fresh lemons and grapefruits, which are hand peeled at the distillery specifically for the next distillation batch. All the lemons are sourced from the Sicilian community of Sant’Alfio, which is located at the base of Mount Etna, Europe’s largest active volcano. The soil here is mineral-rich volcanic soil, and everything is grown without pesticides, fungicides, or additives. The distillery also uses several other unique botanicals, including a proprietary combination of ten different varieties of peppercorn and freshly crushed Lingonberries. All forty-seven botanicals are measured out precisely in grams, batched for each round of distillation, and never reused. Only around 30 of the 47 botanicals are publicly disclosed.
The Bottle
Monkey 47’s bottle is custom-made for the Black Forest Distillers and represents an old pharmacy decanter that founder Alexander Stein discovered while out walking with his son. The bottle uses a dark glass to protect the liquid from harmful ultraviolet rays. The bottle is topped off with a cork lid, sourced from the Ribatejo region of Portugal, and a custom made metal ring. The ring reads “E Pluribus Unum,” which means “Out of Many One” in Latin. Monkey 47 is bottled in the Black Forest at a bottling facility, but not at the distillery.
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