🥃 Jägermeister

Jägermeister is the green-bottle German herbal liqueur with a stag on the label, made by Mast-Jägermeister SE in Wolfenbüttel, Lower Saxony, from 56 herbs, blossoms, roots and fruits. Curt Mast finalised the recipe in 1934 and the drink went on sale in 1935. The classic is 35 % ABV, and the company is in its fifth generation of family ownership. ²³⁵

From vinegar to liqueur. On 23 July 1878 Wilhelm Mast bought a house in Wolfenbüttel and made vinegar for the local canning industry and the mines of the Harz. His son Curt took over in 1917, added a wine trade and stopped making vinegar in 1922. By 1936 the range had almost 20 spirits and into the 1960s about 40 products, until in 1964 the company cut everything but Jägermeister. ²⁸

Name, bottle and stag. Jägermeister, «master huntsman», is an old professional title from hunting. Curt Mast, a keen hunter, chose the bottle by dropping different ones on his kitchen floor until a robust green one survived. With the graphic artist Günther Clausen he drew the label with the stag of Saint Hubertus, the patron of hunters, a glowing cross between its antlers, framed by a verse by the hunting writer Oskar von Riesenthal. ²⁹¹¹

The 56 botanicals. The secret recipe includes star anise, cinnamon and ginger root among its herbs, blossoms, roots and fruits. The company buys them whole and unprocessed, not as mixtures or extracts, tests each in its own laboratory and runs 383 quality checks before bottling. Ginseng, poppy seeds and juniper, often named in rumours, are not used at all. ¹⁴

From maceration to oak. The ingredients are weighed and ground into dry mixes, then steeped for several weeks in alcohol and water, much like tea. The macerates are combined into a dark base of over 50 % ABV, which matures for about a year in large oak casks: about 400 in Wolfenbüttel and 80 in Kamenz, some over a hundred years old and handmade from Palatinate Forest oak. Before bottling, water, alcohol, caramelised sugar and liquid sugar are added. ¹⁴

A liqueur by law. EU rules define a liqueur as a sweetened spirit drink of at least 15 % ABV with at least 100 g of sweetening per litre, or 80 g if it is flavoured only with gentian or wormwood. A 2 cl shot of Jägermeister has 2.8 g of carbohydrate, 2.6 g of it sugar, and 50 kcal, which works out at about 130 g of sugar per litre. The producer calls all its herbal liqueurs vegan, with no animal fining agents and no declarable allergens such as gluten or lactose. ¹⁰¹⁶

The range. Manifest, 38 %, adds a wheat spirit aged for 15 months in small toasted oak casks and a fifth macerate, with more than twice the botanicals of the original. Orange, 33 %, uses oil from the peel of Sicilian oranges and mandarins, and Cold Brew Coffee, 33 %, uses fair-trade coffee beans. The 25 % Winter Edition adds cinnamon, clove, cardamom and vanilla and is meant to be drunk neat or hot with apple juice. ^6131415

A world brand. In 1935 about 21 people sold around 35,000 bottles; in 2022 the company sold 120.7 million 0.7-litre bottles, and in 2025 9.2 million nine-litre cases in 150 countries with about 1,000 staff. Germany, the USA and travel retail lead its markets. The US importer Sidney Frank signed on in 1975, exports passed home sales in 2000, and from 1973 to 1987 Eintracht Braunschweig wore the stag as the first shirt sponsor in German football. ²³⁸¹²

Why it matters to you. The stag on the label does not mean animal ingredients: the producer calls the recipe vegan and uses no gluten or lactose ingredients. A 2 cl shot has 50 kcal and 2.6 g of sugar, and the strength ranges from 25 % to 38 % across the range, so check the name and the percentage on the label. The WHO reminds us that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption. ⁵⁷¹⁰