The tough monkey to get off your back

I TRIED my first Monkey 47 gin tonic in Singapore a few years back, and despite a rather stiff price tag of around SG$18/cocktail (over P700), I really enjoyed this incredibly grapefruit-driven and flavor-rich herbaceous gin. If you follow my columns, you know I am not a “neat” gin or “on the rocks” gin kind of drinker, but one who is more appreciative of gin in the context of the unsubstitutable gin tonic mix.

Monkey 47 was a rare sight in the Philippines till recently. This German-made “craft gin” — as the category is called for super premium gins — is part of the French wine and spirits conglomerate Pernod Ricard. Pernod bought a majority stake in Black Forest Distillers, the makers of Monkey 47, just around two years ago. Now Monkey 47 gin, though still on small allocation from what I gathered, is already being legally brought into the country like other huge Pernod brands dominating the liquor shelves locally, brands like Absolut vodka, Chivas Regal whisky, Martell cognac, Glenlivet single malt whisky, Jacob’s Creek wines from Australia, etc.

THE STORY BEHIND THE NAME
Asia-Pacific General Manager of Black Forest Distillers, the Singapore-based Julien Nicolay, was recently in Manila to talk about Monkey 47. While Black Forest Distillers has been in existence for just around 10 years, the story of Monkey 47 actually dates back to some 70 years ago in post-World War II Germany.

A British Royal Air Force wing commander Montgomery Collins was the actual original creator of Monkey 47. In 1945, Collins was posted in Berlin, a city vastly devastated by the end of the war. Collins was involved in the reconstruction of Berlin, and this included the rebuilding of the Berlin Zoo, where he became fond of an egret monkey called Max. Collins left the Royal Air Force in 1951 and moved permanently to the northern Black Forest region in Germany where he founded a guesthouse, naming it Zum Wilden Affen (German for To The Wild Monkey) as a tribute to Max. Collins used the Black Forest to source his botanicals in creating the Schwarzwald Dry Gin, the guesthouse’s trademark drink till the 1970s. Schwarzwald is German for Black Forest.

Four decades later, Alexander Stein — a German former Nokia executive who came from a spirits-making family — discovered Montgomery Collins’ story and the recipe of his Schwarzwald Dry Gin. Stein founded Black Forest Distillery in 2008 and recreated Schwarzwald Dry Gin, calling it Monkey 47 to honor Max, Collins’ favorite animal. The number 47 is a reference to the number of botanicals it contains, as well as, not coincidentally, the 47% alcohol by volume the gin has.

Many of the botanicals come from the Black Forest itself and the rest are the best possible ingredients available from all over the world. The location in southern Germany is also home of unmatched distilling expertise, where traditional coppersmiths build the best distillers. Some of the botanicals in Monkey 47 include almond, angelica, bitter orange, blackberry, cardamom, cassia, chamomile, cinnamon, lemon verbena, cloves, coriander, cranberries, elderflower, ginger, hawthorn berries, honeysuckle, jasmine, lavender, lemongrass, nutmeg, pimento, pomelo (grapefruit), sage, sloe, and different types of peppers.

TASTING NEAT AND VIA GIN TONIC
Black Forrest Distillers’ Mr. Nicolay presided over a casual tasting of Monkey 47 with select members of the press during the recent Valentine’s week at the Tapenade restaurant of the Discovery Primea Hotel in Makati City. Monkey 47 was served both in a wine glass as neat, and in an old fashioned lowball glass as gin tonic.

The idea of using the wine glass was brilliant as it allowed the multitude of aromas and fragrances to be nosed more properly, foremost of which were the grapefruit, peppercorn, lavender, and herbaceous elements. On the sip and taste part — and again, I am not a fan of drinking high alcohol drinks neat — the gin was actually quite smooth, nicely citrusy on the palate, with a long pepper spicy finish.

As a gin tonic — and I already tasted Monkey 47 gin tonic before — this was probably one of the best gin tonics to recreate anywhere. Expert cocktail mixer, Zachary Connor de Git, who came with Nicolay and part of the Monkey 47 Asia-Pacific team based in Singapore, mixed a perfect Monkey 47 gin tonic using a ratio of two parts tonic water, one part gin, and ice cubes all the way to the top of the glass. Garnishing ideally would be grapefruit with our Monkey 47 gin tonic (as Hendrick’s would have wanted it with cucumber, and Gin Mare with basil), but because Discovery Primea did not have the grapefruit, our gin tonics were garnished instead with another citrus fruit, a slice of lemon. The gin tonic was amazing and super quaffable, and I could have easily chugged a few of these gin tonics if I was not driving.

It is hard not to be enamored with Monkey 47, but the price tag is definitely on the high side. For a smaller 500-ml bottle, Monkey 47 retails even higher than the 700-ml size of most premium gins. The price range starts from above P2,000 per bottle — more expensive per milliliter than Hendrick’s, Gin Mare, and Tangueray Ten, and probably one of the most expensive gins available in the Philippines. The price may be the only deterrent from anyone being totally addicted to this surreal gin.

The author has been a member of the Federation Internationale des Journalists et Ecrivains du Vin et des Spiritueux or FIJEV since 2010. For comments, inquiries, wine event coverage, and other wine-related concerns, e-mail the author at protegeinc@yahoo.com. He is also on Twitter at twitter.com/sherwinlao.