GIN AND TONIC FOR YOU, SIR? WE GIVE YOU 47 REASONS TO SAY YES

A CRICKET - LOVING RAF OFFICER WHO FAILED IN WATCHMAKING, MADRAS CITY, A MONKEY FROM BERLIN ZOO AS BEST FRIEND, AND GERMANY’S FAIRY-TALE BLACK FOREST AREA... ALL THIS CAME TOGETHER TO MAKE MONKEY 47 THE WORLD’S CLASSIEST, COSTLIEST GIN. WE HAVEN’T STARTED ON ITS 47 BOTANICALS YET

- Bobby John Varkey

DOES a fairy-tale job exist? Perhaps. Zachary Connor de Git, an Australian who works for a German company from his office in Singapore, says he has the best job in the world. We believe his claim, for Zach’s forever shuttling between airports around the world, his evenings are mostly spent partying, and even has a home bar stacked with the choicest spirits from all over.

It is but fair that Zach’s employers are headquartered in Germany’s picturesque Black Forest region — yes, the same forest where the Grimm Brothers imagined the fairy-tale of Hansel and Gretel.

This IT graduate from Queensland even ran his own cocktail bar in Melbourne, before moving base to Singapore, where, too, he ran a popular bar called Tippling Club. Let’s concede that Zach really does have the “best booze job” in the world.

But Zach’s no mere bartender. He is the brand ambassador of Monkey 47, a gin that connoisseurs hail as the best, boldest, most complicated, and perhaps even the costliest. “Many people envy me for what I get to do, every day, every moment. I get to travel around the world, go to bars and talk about gin,” he says. Dealing with different time zones between Australia, Singapore and Germany, he says, is a small price to pay.

When I met him at Black Forest area earlier this year, Zach played his role to the T: Charismatic, confident, energetic, and a consummate storyteller. We never saw him without the signature Monkey 47 clay cup... forever ready to concoct a cocktail and convert hardcore rum loyalists to gin admirers. Monkey 47, more specifically.