Monkey business

Was haben ein ..b ..r ..i t i .s c .h ..e r O f .fi z i e r , d e .r ...B e r l .i n e .r Z ..o ..o u n ..d g u t .e r G i.n gemeinsam? Ein Schn a ..p s b ..r e n n ..e r a ..u s ..d e .m S ..c h w a ..r ..z ..w a l d v e r .r t L O I S HOYAL, w a ..s e s

What could be more British than an ice-cold glass of gin and tonic with a slice of lemon? Not much. But this gin comes with an unexpected twist: it stems from the Black Forest.

Sorry! Did you say “gin from Germany? And wait a minute. Isn’t the Black Forest all about cuckoo clocks and some rather famous fruit brandies?

As far as Monkey 47 — a dry gin being made in the Schwarzwald — is concerned, the answer is definitely “no”. This quintessentially British drink is being produced just south of the small village of Lossburg at a distillery called Zum Wilden Affen, or “The Wild Monkey”.

Alexander Stein, Monkey 47 founder and co-owner, says the fact that this is taking place in the German countryside is not as mad as it sounds. To him, it is a completely natural development.

“There is a long distilling tradition in the Black Forest with about 28,000 microdistilleries, so it’s actually perfectly logical that you could make a gin here in Germany,” says Stein, who comes from a family of distillers. Thanks to its deep limestone springs, the Black Forest is also one of the finest sources of soft, mild natural water in Europe, he says. Add berries and native plants, such as spruce, elderflower, blackthorn and bramble leaves, and it all starts to make sense. More than a third of the ingredients in Monkey 47 come from the region.

Exotic monkey

Stein tells me that his gin combines British heritage, Black Forest purity and the exoticism of India. He refers to the British element as a “philosophical aspect”.

“I have always been a big fan of the British sense of humour and the way that the British are so experimental and ambitious when it comes to discovering new things,” says Stein. “The Dutch might