Gin Monkey – organisers of World Gin Day

Emma Stokes is on a mission to make the world of cocktail drinking more accessible to the masses.

London based, she works in science in the day, and as a bartender in cocktail bars on occasional evenings, hosting gin tastings and generally hanging out in gin distilleries whenever possible. Her first book, The Periodic Table of Cocktails is basically the way her brain works in hardback format.

She also runs World Gin Day which takes place on the second Saturday of June every year and have worked as a gin tutor and bartender across multiple cities.

Moving to London she struggled to find good cocktail bars so in November 2009 GinMonkey.co.uk was born with an aim to create a site that focused on cocktail bars specifically, and was built on the ideals of being independent and impartial.

As time went on it became impossible to keep up this anonymity, and this meant it was time to put the reviewing to bed and focus on spirits, cocktails and specifically (though not exclusively) gin…

Evolution…and the story behind the name
Her journey has taken a lot of twists and turns along the way. She apparently named the site Gin Monkey because of her love of gin and the fact she has got ridiculously long arms (!!!) rather than with an intention to write about gin specifically.

The site is now where she indulges her love of gin, cocktails and more.