to meet his elderflower pickers in berets. Three years on, that has never happened. So the story of Frenchmen on bikes, handpicking fresh elderflowers in the Alps for St-Germain liqueur remains a good tale. The liquor itself, on the other hand, has become so ubiquitous in contemporary cocktail recipes that some refer to the elderflower liqueur as “bartender’s ketchup.”
About a year after St-Germain launched, in 2008, I finally did make it to the French Alps during elderflower season, when I visited, on a sunny alpine Sunday, the Chartreuse distillery in the small town of Voiron, near Grenoble.
Chartreuse is about as old-school as liquor gets. In fact, Chartreuse’s story may be the granddaddy of romantic liquor industry tales. The liqueur is famously made from a secret blend of 130 herbs, flowers, and spices dating back to a alchemical manuscript titled An Elixir of Long Life that was given to the Carthusian monks in 1605 by a French military officer. The full recipe is known only to two Carthusians—each of whom knows only half of the formula, and both of whom have taken a vow of silence. The story goes that these two monks occasionally leave the solitude of their cells—in a monastery at the top of a mountain—in order to distill and barrel the liqueur. And, when they’re through, the monks return to their cells and their quiet life of prayer and meditation.
I didn’t get to meet any of the monks, of course, what with them having the vow of silence and living in solitude at the top of a mountain and all. I did, however, meet a public relations director named Florence Donnier-Blanc. I also met a number of young women working in the tasting room, who wore (yes, it’s true) chartreuse-colored business suits.
On my tour of the “longest liqueur cellar in the world” (and who knew that length of cellar was important?), I was assured that the monks still keep a close eye on the process. But most questions went unanswered. How long does Chartreuse age in the barrels? “We don’t know,” Donnier-Blanc said. “The monks decide when they’re ready.” Are there really 130 ingredients? “We suppose,” Donnier-Blanc said, “but we have no way of knowing for sure.”
In Voiron, they sell a version of the original Élixir Végétal, based on the original recipe, which comes in a wooden bottle and is 71 percent alcohol by volume. It’s said to be a medicinal curative. “The Élixir really works,” Donnier-Blanc said. “My mother gave it to us when we had a bad stomach. You can rub it on a bee sting, and in twenty minutes, it’s gone.”
The monks cannot export their Élixir Végétal to the United States, however, because the FDA mandates that ingredients have to be described in full on labels, meaning the Carthusian secret would be irrevocably revealed. EU rules already require that Chartreuse list gluten-containing ingredients, causing some consternation in Voiron.
Chartreuse is one of the few liqueurs that are aged, and the extra-aged VEP ( Vieillissement Exceptionnellement Prolongé ) bottles can sell for upward of two hundred dollars. The rarest, most expensive bottles of Chartreuse in the world are those that were made before and during a period of exile. In 1903, the French government tried to nationalize the distillery, and the monks, unwilling to give up the secret, moved to Tarragona, Spain. “The quality of nineteenth-century Chartreuse has never been equaled, and of course it is one of the very few liqueurs that benefits from aging,” according to the United Kingdom–based rare spirits dealer Finest & Rarest. Today, the mythic “Tarragona” bottles of Chartreuse fetch €800 or more. Most Americans have to make do with the standard green (at 55 percent alcohol by volume) and the yellow (at 40 percent alcohol by volume). Both offer complexity—herbal, floral, vegetal, peppery, sweet—that’s hard to pin down, and both suggest tastes that predate the modern world. Neither is predictable
About a year after St-Germain launched, in 2008, I finally did make it to the French Alps during elderflower season, when I visited, on a sunny alpine Sunday, the Chartreuse distillery in the small town of Voiron, near Grenoble.
Chartreuse is about as old-school as liquor gets. In fact, Chartreuse’s story may be the granddaddy of romantic liquor industry tales. The liqueur is famously made from a secret blend of 130 herbs, flowers, and spices dating back to a alchemical manuscript titled An Elixir of Long Life that was given to the Carthusian monks in 1605 by a French military officer. The full recipe is known only to two Carthusians—each of whom knows only half of the formula, and both of whom have taken a vow of silence. The story goes that these two monks occasionally leave the solitude of their cells—in a monastery at the top of a mountain—in order to distill and barrel the liqueur. And, when they’re through, the monks return to their cells and their quiet life of prayer and meditation.
I didn’t get to meet any of the monks, of course, what with them having the vow of silence and living in solitude at the top of a mountain and all. I did, however, meet a public relations director named Florence Donnier-Blanc. I also met a number of young women working in the tasting room, who wore (yes, it’s true) chartreuse-colored business suits.
On my tour of the “longest liqueur cellar in the world” (and who knew that length of cellar was important?), I was assured that the monks still keep a close eye on the process. But most questions went unanswered. How long does Chartreuse age in the barrels? “We don’t know,” Donnier-Blanc said. “The monks decide when they’re ready.” Are there really 130 ingredients? “We suppose,” Donnier-Blanc said, “but we have no way of knowing for sure.”
In Voiron, they sell a version of the original Élixir Végétal, based on the original recipe, which comes in a wooden bottle and is 71 percent alcohol by volume. It’s said to be a medicinal curative. “The Élixir really works,” Donnier-Blanc said. “My mother gave it to us when we had a bad stomach. You can rub it on a bee sting, and in twenty minutes, it’s gone.”
The monks cannot export their Élixir Végétal to the United States, however, because the FDA mandates that ingredients have to be described in full on labels, meaning the Carthusian secret would be irrevocably revealed. EU rules already require that Chartreuse list gluten-containing ingredients, causing some consternation in Voiron.
Chartreuse is one of the few liqueurs that are aged, and the extra-aged VEP ( Vieillissement Exceptionnellement Prolongé ) bottles can sell for upward of two hundred dollars. The rarest, most expensive bottles of Chartreuse in the world are those that were made before and during a period of exile. In 1903, the French government tried to nationalize the distillery, and the monks, unwilling to give up the secret, moved to Tarragona, Spain. “The quality of nineteenth-century Chartreuse has never been equaled, and of course it is one of the very few liqueurs that benefits from aging,” according to the United Kingdom–based rare spirits dealer Finest & Rarest. Today, the mythic “Tarragona” bottles of Chartreuse fetch €800 or more. Most Americans have to make do with the standard green (at 55 percent alcohol by volume) and the yellow (at 40 percent alcohol by volume). Both offer complexity—herbal, floral, vegetal, peppery, sweet—that’s hard to pin down, and both suggest tastes that predate the modern world. Neither is predictable
Similar Books
