Driven not just by our oft-cited botanical curiosity, but rather by our practically obsessive pursuit of the utmost quality, those of us at Monkey 47 embark each and every year on a search for the right 48th ingredient – our Species rara. While our motto on these travels will always be “no mountain too high, no valley too low”, our latest venture actually took us just round the corner to the Keltenhof, a farm...

The art of distillation goes hand in hand with chasing aromas and rendering them in liquid form – although alcohol is merely the medium, not the actual goal of the process. Meanwhile, the world of spirits is divided into categories rather than sensory components and the possibilities associated with them. It’s a form of conditioning that stands in contrast to our obsession with variety and innovation. Why do distillates and spir...

Ingredients (serves four) For the batter 500 g flour 1/3 l beer Pinch of salt 30 g sugar 3 Tbsp. vegetable oil 4 egg whites 1/3 l vegetable oil 5 crisp sour apples Preparation To make the batter, stir all the ingredients together. Peel and core the apples, then cut them into rings. Heat the rest of the oil in a deep pan. Dip the apple rings in the batter, place them in the pan, and cook ...

"A resurrected technical monument of national importance" is how the town of Vöhrenbach in the Breg valley refers to its Linach valley dam. In actual fact, it is even under heritage protection because it is unique throughout Germany. The town constructed the dam between 1920 and 1922 to generate low-cost energy. In 1969, an energy provider offered DM 300,000 if the town would stop generating energy and instead enter into long-term s...

En buntes Gschmisch an Hergottsbscheißerle. Or, for all those who don’t come from Schwabenland: variations on the Maultasche! One of the most beloved Swabian specialities, Maultaschen are a product of the season of Lent – that’s when many Christians follow the tradition of eschewing meat from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday. Our ever-inventive countrymen and -women thus decided to put one over on the man upstairs to get their p...

From the Black Forest to the world: Plenty of success stories have started this way! It’s as true of Monkey 47 – a global ambassador of taste in its own right – as it was of the Winterhalter brothers, who cast the high society of their day in a favourable light back in the 19th century. Franz Xaver and Hermann Winterhalter grew up in humble surroundings in a small village near the Feldbe...

Ingredients 30ml Monkey 47 Sloe Gin 30ml Campari 30ml Punt e Mes Preparation Stir all ingredients over ice, strain over fresh ice in a rocks glass. Garnish with an Orange Slice. Cheers!

Ingredients 50ml Monkey 47 Barrel Cut 30ml Tawny Port 2.5ml Sugar Syrup 2 Dashes of Orange Bitters 2 Dashes of Angostura Bitters Preparation Stir all ingredients over ice and strain into a coupette! Garnish with a lemon zest. Cheers!

“Up there – you can see it better from here,” Karin Walther says as she points skyward. “There’s a bit of the trumpet and some of the wing that sticks out.” We’re standing in the middle of Freiburg’s historic centre on Münsterplatz, the square that surrounds the city’s venerable minster. The scent of peonies is doing its best to stand up to the savoury aroma of the bratwurst serve...

They say that even the longest journey starts with a single step. In this case, it was just one word: Ulaanbaatar! The name had been echoing through my head like the guttural war cry of a fierce warrior on horseback. It was the unfamiliar sound of a faraway land that had made me dream of travelling to Mongolia for a good long while. The little I knew of the country ...