Elephant Gin: a cure for the Heart of Darkness

I first encountered Elephant Gin at a pop-up German-themed bar in the basement
of Herman Ze German restaurant in Charlotte Street during London Cocktail
Week last October. You can see that this is bottle 564 from a batch named after an
elephant called Igor. The glass shows that this is a gin to be sipped and
savoured; the lid is there to keep in the precious aromas, I was told

In a crowded marketplace gins increasingly seem to be using a quirky back-story, unusual botanicals or some other gimmick to grab our attention. Elephant Gin is the second German gin I’ve tried in recent months and, like Monkey 47, it has an animal theme. But where Monkey 47 uses botanicals from the Black Forest region where it is made, Elephant is actually all about Africa. And where the monkey in question was an individual called Max from a zoo, Elephant Gin is named after the whole species—in fact 15% of the profits are donated to two charities that work to protect African elephants from ivory poaching. Having said that, each batch of 800 bottles is named after a particular elephant that one of the charities has helped, so every label has the name and number handwritten on it.

This is how the gin is presented, hankering after the Golden Age of exploration

The makers were apparently inspired by their own travels in the continent, and the imagery is designed to evoke the Victorian heyday of exploration, with a front label reminiscent an old postage stamp (featuring an elephant clutching a bottle of gin in its trunk) and a vintage map on the back label. The bottle is specially made, stoppered with natural cork and decorated with twine and an embossed seal, and does feel like something taken on safari. Of course Europeans in the Victorian era did not exactly treat the Dark Continent with reverence, and would have been more likely to bag elephants as trophies than protect them, but perhaps the gin is an attempt to make amends for the colonial past…

Unsurprisingly, the 14 botanicals include a number from Africa: citric baobab from Malawi (boasting more vitamin C than oranges, it says here, though how much of that survives into the gin I don’t know), bitter floral African Wormwood, devil’s claw, said to have healing properties, blackcurrant-like buchu and herbaceous lion’s tail, all from South Africa. In this respect the product has more in common with Whitley Neill, another African-inspired gin that also uses baobab (and also gives some of its profits to African charities). Elephant also uses fresh apples from an orchard near the distillery outside Hamburg, which slightly confuses the image, plus elderflower, ginger, pimento, lavender and pine needles from the Salzburger Mountains, as well as the more conventional cassia and sweet orange peel, plus juniper, of course.

It’s clear that this gin is not just about gimmickry—it would have been easy to use a tried-and-tested set of botanicals then add one or two token African elements. But the fact that there are so many unusual ingredients, plus an absence of many typical gin botanicals, such as coriander, orris or angelica, shows that the whole thing has been put together from the ground up and the botanical selection is all about the flavour.

Even the 10cl sample bottle mimics the style and
quality of the full-size vessel

The botanicals are handpicked and macerated for 24 hours. It’s a one-shot distillation (as opposed to multi-shot, where a botanically intense “concentrate” is produced which is then diluted down with alcohol)* with a relatively small “heart” of the distillate selected for use (i.e. the best bit—the first liquid out of a pot still is discarded, as is the last, and how much of the central cut you use is a balance of quality against cost). The gin is diluted with local spring water down to 45% ABV. The end result is not cheap, at around £30 for just 50cl. (My sample is only 10cl, so I wasn’t able to try it in many different serves.)

The first thing I get on sniffing the bottle is a floral, marshmallow sweetness combined with a juiciness. (How a smell can be juicy is hard to say—I expect it reminds me of fruit that I know to be juicy.) There is warm ginger, zingy, sherbet citrus, blackcurrant, earthy spice. It’s an elegant, perfumed, structured aroma, but quite subtle. It is sweetish on the tongue, and smooth for a 45% gin, with fruit interplaying with herbaceous notes, the impression of sweetness fencing with dry spice and a tweak of bitterness on the tip of your tongue. It doesn’t strike me as particularly juniper-driven.

Some of the seals say "Made in Germany" while others
show a Zulu shield and spears, and the date 1802, an
emblem that is also moulded into the bottle. This
commemorates the year that botanist Heinrich Stark
mounted an important expedition. I can't find out much
about him, though

As it happens I have some Whitley Neill to hand so I try it for comparison. It is much more juniper-dominated on the nose; on the palate it is also sweet and fruity, but more stern and muscular. Elephant is considerably softer and more delicate.

Add a bit of tonic water (but not too much) and the character remains broadly the same, though for the first time I get a taste of apple, joining the sweet citrus and dry, perfumed spice. But Elephant Gin won’t take too much tonic water before its subtleties are swamped. (By comparison Whitley Neill is well adapted to a G&T with its strong juniper element making its presence easily felt.) The prescribed garnish is a slice of apple and it does go well, slotting in easily with the gin’s own flavours.** Finally, I try one of the recommended cocktails, the White Tusk (a version of the White Lady): 50ml Elephant Gin, 15ml lemon juice, 10ml Cointreau, 10ml sugar syrup and 10ml egg white. It is dominated by sweetness and the orange flavour of the Cointreau, but the gin’s own characteristics do seep through; I’m tempted to describe them as appley but it may just be the apple garnish from the last drink making me think that way.

* Proponents of single-shot distillation evidently feel that multi-shot is a compromise that sacrifices quality. However, m’colleague DBS conducted a test recently, with the help of Anne Brock from Jensen, where they made various gin batches using single- and multi-shot techniques and blind tasted them. Broadly speaking the result was that the single-shot samples were not preferred to the rest. See the report at http://distilling.uberflip.com/i/622468-distiller-winter-16/91.

** All new gins seem to have to come with a prescribed garnish—and this is never something normal like a slice of lemon. (Nor is it ever recommended that no garnish is necessary.) It seems that this is viewed as an essential part of establishing the product’s character and place in the market. I have a bit of a suspicion of garnishes in general—I feel that if the product doesn’t taste at its best without the added flavour of the garnish, then why not make it with that flavour in it to start off with? (OK, I accept that, for example, the taste of a slice of fresh apple probably can’t be replicated by macerating apple in the spirit then distilling it, even with cold, vacuum distillation.) Generally speaking the prescribed garnish is usually one of the gin’s botanicals anyway. Likewise, my suspicions—and my hackles—are raised in a bar when I am presented with a cocktail that has a small tree sprouting from the top, frequently rendering it almost impossible to drink without poking your eye out. If the vessel is also something opaque, like a bamboo log or hollowed-out monkey skull, then between that and the plug of garnish you find that you can’t actually see the liquid you are drinking, which I find disconcerting. Recently I was served a cocktail with a smouldering cinnamon stick balanced horizontally across the top. WTF? Even the barman seemed a bit sheepish about this, since you couldn’t pick the glass up without the stick rolling off, and if it didn’t then it would probably burn you (or set fire to your moustache if you had one). In case you’re wondering, burning cinnamon smoke does smell lightly of cinnamon (I’ve just set fire to a cinnamon stick to check), so I’m sure this aroma was supposed to be part of the experience, but I don’t remember being able to pick up on this at the time.

Monkey 47: the creature from the Black Forest

Wind-up monkey not included

I like a monkey as much as the next man (more than many, if I’m honest), so I was happy to try Monkey 47 gin, handled in the UK by Spirit Cartel, who also do Four Roses bourbon. The principle hype is its 47 botanicals—seizing the crown from The Botanist, with its mere 35—but it also has an unusual provenance and an exotic back story.

The tale starts at the end of World War II when Wing Commander Montgomery Collins is posted to help run the British Sector of Berlin. A man of varied and fickle interests, he is saddened by the destruction around him and helps the effort to rebuild Berlin Zoo by sponsoring a monkey called Max. He leaves the Air Force in 1951 and, sparked by an urge to learn the art of watchmaking, he moves to the Northern Black Forest region. Unfortunately he proves to have little talent for it, despite his love of watches, so he decides to open a guesthouse which he names Zum wilden Affen (The Wild Monkey—not really something that promises opulent comfort and a restful night’s sleep, but there you go). He is also depicted as having an Englishman’s love of gin and, as juniper is an abundant local ingredient in the renowned Black Forest ham, he starts tinkering with his own recipe, combining spices redolent of his upbringing as the son of a diplomat in India with local forest plants.

The story jumps forward to the early 2000s when renovation of the guesthouse turns up a wooden box containing a bottle of Monty’s gin, labelled “Max the Monkey—Schwarzwald Dry Gin”, with a letter explaining its recipe. Businessman Alexander Stein, after a career in telecommunications with postings around the world, including north and south America, returns to his home in Baden-Würtemberg. He hears the story of Monty and his gin and decides to recreate it.

Of course one takes all this with a pinch of salt, but the modern gin is made by distiller Christoph Keller at the Stählemühle distillery in Oberen Hegau. They admit that they made many changes to Monty’s recipe, which they variously describe as “rudimentary” and “eccentric”, but it does include many ingredients from the forest region, such as spruce, blackthorn, elderflower and bramble leaves, and they place a particular emphasis on the very soft local spring water and the “secret weapon” of fresh cranberries.* (Apparently Alex and Christoph distilled 120 botanicals individually and tasted them in isolation.) Distillation is in very small batches and the process uses both maceration and steam extraction, where alcohol vapour passes through baskets of botanicals, and the finished distillate is aged for three months in earthenware containers before being diluted to 47% ABV with that local spring water.

An Aviation made with Monkey 47

The packaging plays up the heritage aspect: the label is designed like a Victorian postage stamp, with serrated edges, plain paper and just two spot-printed colours. The squat, brown glass bottle is apparently based on an old pharmacy bottle that Stein found while out walking. The stopper is cork, at first glance just a plain one jammed in the top, but in fact it has a metal band halfway down that provides a finite travel into the bottle.

So what does it taste like? Can you pick up all 47 botanicals? No, of course not, but it is certainly complex. For me, juniper is not the first thing that leaps out, but limes, or rather a blend of limes and spices that really reminds me of lime pickle, then juniper and marmalade. There’s a heavy florality that is almost cloying, with coriander seed, lemon sherbet, juicy leafiness or stemminess like geranium, and something woody like cassia.

On the tongue the gin is relatively sweet and smooth for its 47%, with citrus to the fore, plus chocolate, something leafy like watercress, parma violets, orange peel, maybe a hint of cherry. And that lime pickle thing again.

In a Martini with Noilly Prat it is a natural companion to what is quite a citric vermouth; that floral element comes out along with strong coriander notes. But it is also very good with Belsazar Dry (and surely not because they are both German), making a juicy, fresh and balanced cocktail. A Negroni with Monkey 47, Campari and Martini Rosso is fruity and perfumed, perhaps a little cloying but with a strongly bitter aftertaste. In a G&T citrus and coriander spice are to the fore, with a wood-dry finish. As I suspected, the gin makes a good Aviation (gin, lemon juice, maraschino and crème de violette), with that citrus fruit sitting comfortably with the lemon and the gin’s florality at ease with the violette and cherry fruit. It also makes a predictably easy Gimlet (gin and lime cordial), with all those lime flavours sitting comfortably with each other.

It’s an intriguing gin with a strong impact from an unusual flavour profile. Despite the heritage tale, it went through 100 test formulas, accompanied by evaluative tastings with “renowned barkeepers”, so it is clearly engineered for a particular purpose, rather than just being a faithful presentation of a curio from the past. To me it falls into the category of gins that use sweet or floral flavours to make the spirit more approachable neat and perhaps woo consumers who are not naturally drawn to gin. It’s not going to become an everyday gin for me, partly because I personally prefer something more juniper-driven, and partly because it is £37 for just 50cl. But it is causing a lot of ripples, and it does have a picture of a monkey holding a sprig of jasmine on it, which counts for a lot.

* Judging by the “Encyclopedia Botanica” on the website the botanical bill also includes coriander, angelica, nutmeg, grains of paradise, common vervain, jasmine, camomile, marsh mallow and musk mallow.

A thoroughly Scottish gin

The mysterious box opens to reveal…

I was lucky enough to receive a mysterious package in the post the other day, which turned out to be from the folk at Caorunn, a relatively new gin from Scotland. Quite a bit of effort had gone into the package itself, so I have documented what I believe is known as the “unpack” in tech geek circles in photographs on the right.

I was initially a bit perplexed as to what the thing was handles was, but Mrs H guessed that it was for coring and slicing apples in a single stroke. It seems that just as, in a crowded marketplace, new gins frequently have oddball botanicals, so it also seems de rigeur to specify an unusual garnish, and in this case it is indeed slices of apple—coul blush apple being one of the botanicals.*

The other thing you notice straightaway is the unusual five-sided glass included in the package (not the easiest to drink out of but stylish nonetheless). In fact the bottle itself is subtly pentagonal, and the theme carries on in the five-pointed asterisk that graces the label.

A sticker with a five-pointed star, hiding…

Now at this point a weaker man than I would start to fear that this logo, which is to all intents and purposes a pentagram, heralded witchcraft or paganism—perhaps an overture to lure me on a “fact-finding mission” to the Balmenach Distillery in Cromdale on the Spey where it is made, only to find myself burned in a wicker man by villagers wearing animal masks.

Fortunately there is a more prosaic explanation. In addition to six conventional gin botanicals (juniper, coriander, lemon peel, orange peel, angelica root and cassia bark) Caorunn (pronounced ka-ROON) also features five Scottish botanicals as well, rowan berry, heather, dandelion, bog myrtle and the aforementioned apple). In fact caorunn is the Gaellic name for rowan.** In this respect it is like The Botanist gin, which uses only botanicals found on the island of Islay where it is made (which is not to say, I assume, that the actual botanicals used in the gin are all sourced on Islay). That gin manages to rack up a tally of 31 botanicals (which I had thought was a record, though I gather that Monkey 47 actually has 47), making Caorunn seem a model of Zen-like simplicity with only 11. Although Caorunn technically falls into the category of “London Gin” (the highest EU grade, indicating a high quality spirit, natural botanicals with no artificial flavourings, and no colours or flavours added after distillation), the labelling prefers to refer to it simply as “Scottish gin”.

A collection of intriguing objects

Like The Botanist, Caorunn is made by a whisky distillery, in this case the Balmenach Distillery, owned by the Inver House Group, which also includes Pulteney, Balblair, Knockdu and Speyburn-Glenlivet in its portfolio, and apparently a vodka made at its Airdrie facility too. Balmenach was one of the first distilleries to be sanctioned under the Excise Act of 1823.

The gin was allegedly inspired by the landscape of the Cairngorms in which the distillery is located. It is batch-distilled by hand using an unusual still a bit like a Carterhead, in that the botanicals infuse into the alcohol vapour rather than coming into contact with the liquid spirit. But where the Carterhead has a botanical basket at the top of a column, the Balmenach still has a unique copper “berry chamber” in which the botanicals are spread out on four horizontal trays, to maximise their exposure to the vapour. The spirit is triple distilled from 100% grain and the gin is diluted to 41.8% ABV using spring water that filters down through the Cromdale Hills behind the distillery.

The "berry chamber" with trays for the botanicals

Uncork a bottle of Caorunn and you are met by a soft aroma, a blend of inviting spice with an almost chocolatey warmth, and, higher up, a crisp, aromatic stemminess. I open up some Tanqueray for comparative purposes and it has a stiffer juniper/coriander nose. In a glass, Caorunn definitely has a softer juniper element than traditional gin, with subtle herbal notes and a pronounced fruitiness, which I guess must come from the rowan berries. Where Tanquerary packs a prickly high-note punch, Caorunn is softer and sweeter, almost creamy with berry fruit, aromatic apple notes, and a slightly toasty, biscuity finish.

Those mystical objects in detail. Both the bottle label and the etchings of the highball glass
show sort of Rennie Mackintosh stylised images of the five Scottish botanicals in the gin

I knock up a couple of G&Ts, one with Caorunn and one using Chancery, a fairly traditional own-brand gin from Tesco that is made by Greenalls. Where the Chancery emphasises dry spice the Caorunn at first offers a more pronounced orange element plus delicate, fragrant high notes that do seem something like apple. In any case the apple garnish does go very well.

Even the bottle (viewed here from the underside) is pentagonal

In some ways Caorunn is following the trend of producing gins that have a softer, sweeter character than traditional steely juniper-driven gin, presumably to attract people who do not consider themselves gin drinkers—perhaps because they are not that keen on juniper. Where some, like Bloom or G’Vine (and to a certain extent Adnams) add heavy floral flavours, Caorunn is a subtler, more elusive beast. To get the most out of its understated flavour it might be best consumed just with tonic or neat on the rocks, or in a pretty dry Martini (I try one at my usual 4:1 ratio and the gin is almost being masked by the vermouth).

Yes, the apple corer/slicer does actually work

In a standard Negroni (equal parts gin, red vermouth and Campari) the gin again seems swamped. But on the Caorunn website there is a large number of rather interesting-sounding recommended cocktails, one of which is a Negroni—but made with Aperol instead of Campari. So I make one like this and it does indeed work much better, the gentler flavour of the Aperol allowing the gin to make its presence felt in the form of gentle juniper and some floral notes.

I try another one from the site, called King James II and created by Mal Spence of Blythswood Square Hotel. It involves an interesting blend of the gin, Lillet Blanc, Pernod, elderflower liqueur, grapefruit bitters and gomme syrup. An inspired and imaginative combination in my opinion, with the anise and elderflower fencing in the foreground and the gin’s apple aromatics seemingly floating over the top. This is an interesting example of a Lillet Blanc cocktail where this ingredient really works—most are just using Lillet Blanc because Kina Lillet isn’t made any more, and it never seems to work, presumably because Kina Lillet packed more of a bitter herbal punch than the soft, sweet, orangey modern drink.

A King James II cocktail

Hats off to Caorunn for producing such a thoughtful cocktail list—many spirit brands will post just a perfunctory five or six “cocktails” that turn out to be simply the addition of a mixer. And the couple that I have tried so far do indeed seem to showcase the gin’s gentle subtleties, where many classic gin cocktail recipes might swamp it. 

Experimenting with flavour blends not led by juniper seems to be frightfully modish at the moment (as we discovered on Monday at the Craft Distillers Association gin awards organised by DBS, more of which anon). So even if you are not a Scottish nationalist you might want to give Caorunn a try. At about £25 a bottle it’s not unreasonably priced.

* At the Beefeater 24 global cocktail competition last December I got talking to one of the organisers and I commented that I thought it was a bit odd that these recommended garnishes are invariably one of the botanicals that go into the gin. He looked a bit shocked and said, “When we train bartenders we tell them always to garnish using only botanicals that are in the gin.” But while this will always keep you on fairly safe ground, there is an argument for saying that if the gin does indeed taste better with a bit more of that particular botanical, why not just add more when making the gin? Of course there may well be a difference between the flavour of a fresh ingredient and the flavour it might lend by being macerated in the spirit and then redistilled. But in any case I would have thought that garnishing could be as much an opportunity to investigate flavour combinations (by adding things that are not in the botanical list) as a way of emphasising a flavour that is already in the gin.

** Apparently rowan berries were used in Celtic medicines—as indeed juniper was also considered to have medicinal benefits, and was first used in spirits as a way of preserving those healing powers rather than as a way to flavour the hooch.