We swung by the German Embassy yesterday, where Alexander Stein, managing partner of Black Forest Distillers, was holding forth on Monkey 47 Gin. If the story makes the product, this top-shelf brand has a good future. If the endorsement of experts such as Robert Parker makes the product, this brand has a good future. It’s currently distributed in 40 countries, including the U.S., where it’s available in most states.
Stein traces the product back to Montgomery “Monty” Collins, a wing commander in the Royal Air Force who was assigned to Berlin at the end of World War II. The extent of destruction of Germany’s capital profoundly affected Collins, who decided to help rebuild the city. His contribution was to be in helping to rebuild the Berlin Zoo. It was there that he became acquainted with an egret monkey named Max.
In 1951, Collins left the RAF and settled in the Black Forest region of Germany, intent upon becoming a watchmaker, a trade for which he had little talent. So he opened a guest house.
But he was unwilling to give up some British traditions, including a good glass of gin. It turned out that the Black Forest was a good spot for producing gin: Juniper was in abundant supply, since it was a vital ingredient in producing a Black Forest ham. Also available: abundant well water and a number of specialty herbs. Collins went on to develop the recipe that would ultimately become Monkey 47.
That recipe was uncovered around the turn of the century. In 2006 Stein learned of the recipe, decided to go into the gin business after working for Nokia in the U.S.
Stein says he had never intended to work in the bev/al industry and had been cautioned by his father, who had been a distiller, that it was “very competitive.”
He and master distiller Christoph Keller launched the company in 2008 — “not exactly the best time to launch a new business, with the banking crisis,” he observed.
“We do everything in house,” Stein said. “Distilling, macerating, etc.” The process, he said, is the “counterpoint to industrial production.”
Experts said the recipe was too complex to become popular, but Stein insists “truth is always in the glass.” So he charged ahead.
The bottle is based on an old pharmaceutical bottle he found in a flea market. The bottle was no longer in the market, but Stein found a glass product willing to develop a mold for the bottle and to produce the first 20,000 bottles and for $50,000. It’s a dark brown bottle, which Stein says protects the aroma.
It has a cork closure with a steel ring to prevent the cork from being pushed so far into the bottle that it can’t be easily extracted.
That steel ring itself illustrates the entrepreneurial mindset. It wasn’t available commercially, so Stein talked with a neighbor who had retired from the steel business. “Why don’t you buy some steel tubes and buy me a cutting machine for $1,500, and I’ll produce them for you?”, which is exactly what Stein did.
Robert Parker had a taste of the product overseas and urged Stein to find a U.S. importer and distributor. “We found four companies that could do the importing” and settled on Sidney Frank Importing Co.
SFIC thought the product had potential and agreed to import one container. The first shipment arrived in April 2014. An additional four containers have been ordered since then, and the product is available in nearly all open states. It’s served at high-end restaurants and clubs as well as being available in some retail shops.
Stein’s currently on a tour of key markets, hoping to expand the product’s U.S. market.
About the brand name: Monkey obviously refers to Collins’ Max. The 47 refers to the original tax rate on distilled spirits.
This story originally appeared in Kane’s Beverage News Daily July 16, 2015.
Copyright 2015 Whitaker Newsletters. All Rights Reserved.