The only existing factory of the anisette “Anís del Mono” is located in Badalona. It’s an 1870 modernist jewel and, you can not only visit it, but every year it produces more than 4 million of liters of that liquor well known throughout the World.
The factory was founded by José and Vicente Bosch brothers, when they joined and decided to re-locate here the distillation of different liquors which José produced since 1865 in another factory in the center of Badalona.The liquor which would get the fame was “Anisado Refinado Vicente Bosch” (the refined anisette Vicente Bosch) which is in fact the name of the product, but Badalona population knew it as “Anís del Mono” (The monkey’s anisette), due to Vicente Bosch used to have a monkey in the factory yard, animal quite exotic in that time. Such was that habit of calling the liquor with that name, that the monkey’s figure ended up on the bottle label, but with Darwin’s heat, because Darwin in 1859, with his masterwork “On the Origen of the Spices”, had ideas so strange like man come from the ape.
The catalane painter Ramon Casas was the artist of a lot of Modernist Posters at the moment, used by companies as advertising. Companies such as Anís del Mono (see picture); Codorniu; or Cacaolat.
Now, even though the factory belongs to Osborne Group, the liquor is produced in the same handicraft way and, besides, since this year “Aromes de Montserrat” (a liquor produced by the Benedictine monks of Montserrat) is produced also here.
