INDLOVU GIN: THE SECRET’S IN THE ELEPHANT DUNG

Gin made from elephant dung? At last, it’s here. Paula and Les Ansley, both former biology professors, run a South Aftrican distillery that uses elements harvested from elephant poop to create Indlovu gin, a unique spirit that doesn’t taste anything like you’d imagine (* …for all the times you’ve imagined what elephant crap tastes like.) The Ansleys learned that elephants absorb less than half of what they eat, with the other half of their plant diet remaining intact in their dung. Naturally, they thought, why not use them to flavor a unique gin? First, the dung is dried and then goes through a sterilization process. It is then rinsed and dried again, and finally infused into the gin. Indlovu also gets its flavor from extracts of the elephants’ diet of roots, grasses, fruit and bark. Every bottle of Indlovu features the GPS coordinates of where the dung was collected, as well as the date it was collected. Reaction has been mixed, although many of those who have tried it declared themselves impressed by its taste. The distillery donates 15% of its profits to a foundation for the conservation of elephants.
* No thanks, I prefer my elephant dung right from the spigot.
* It’s a great gin, but it does attract flies.
* Drink too much and you’ll be squirting yourself with water out of your nose.
* This is the extra push of publicity that’s going to make elephant dung gin really take off. Or not.