ELEPHANT DUNG GIN

Hankering for some gin infused with elephant dung? You’re in luck. In South Africa, Les and Paula Ansley came up with the idea a year ago after learning that elephants eat a variety of fruits and flowers and yet digest less than a third of it. As a consequence, says Les, in the elephant dung you get an amazing variety of botanicals. His wife suggested they collect all these botanicals and make gin from it. Hence, Indlovu Gin. Here’s the process: droppings are dried and crumbled, then washed to remove dirt and sand. Eventually, only the remains of the fruits, flowers, leaves and bark eaten by the elephants are left behind (* Oh, sure. Right.). Those botanicals are then sterilized and dried again and the remains are infused in the gin. They describe the flavor as “wooded, almost spicy, and” – as you might have guessed – “earthy”. The gin bottles are marked with the date and coordinates of where the elephant dung was collected, so you’re able to compare different vintages.
* As one would with any alcoholic beverage made from crap.
* Do they sell the bottles out of a trunk?
* By the way, Indlovu is Swahili for “sucker”.
* Sometimes you have to go along with your wife’s crazy ideas just to keep the peace.
* If you can drink this, you’re a better man than I am, dung-y gin.