Monkey business

It’s unlikely that Russian-born surgeon, Serge Voronoff (1866-1951) would expect to have his life’s work immortalised by a cocktail, but that’s exactly what happened. In the 1920s and 1930s the good doctor developed what he marketed as a ground-breaking anti-aging procedure which he termed “rejuvenation.” Controversially, this involved taking tissue from the testicles of monkeys and grafting it onto a man’s testicles. Very soon his fame spread and millionaires from across the US and France (where he was based) were applying to undergo Voronoff’s transplant surgery which not only promised an infusion of youthful energy,  but cures for senility and schizophrenia as well as prolongation of life and, as a beneficial side effect, a heightened sex drive. By 1927 he’d performed more than 1,000 such procedures at up to 10,000 francs per surgery. In total, Voronoff is believed to have performed 2,000 of his transplants worldwide, though mostly in France. By the outbreak of World War II, however, his treatments had been thoroughly discredited and he’d been branded a charlatan. But by then, the Monkey Gland cocktail – a fusion of gin, orange juice, grenadine and absinthe (or pastis) – had already been concocted by distinguished Scottish mixologist, Harry MacElhone, the owner of Harry's New York Bar in Paris. Voronoff died on 3 September, 1951 at the age of 85 in Lausanne, Switzerland, and is buried in the Russian Orthodox Cemetery in Nice, France.