Chartreuse (liqueur)

[2][3] According to tradition, a marshal of artillery to French king Henry IV, François Hannibal d'Estrées, presented the Carthusian monks at Vauvert, near Paris, with an alchemical manuscript that contained a recipe for an "elixir of long life" in 1605.

[4][5] The recipe eventually reached the religious order's headquarters at the Grande Chartreuse monastery, north of Grenoble.

The formula is said to include 130 herbs, plants and flowers and secret ingredients combined in a wine alcohol base.

[6] The monks were again expelled from the monastery following a French law in 1903, and their real property, including the distillery, was confiscated by the government.

While the French corporation was acting legally in France, the monks successfully prevented the export of the liqueur to many other countries, since the order retained ownership of its foreign trademark registrations, largely because the recipe had been kept secret.

A group of local businessmen in Voiron bought all the shares at a low price and sent them as a gift to the monks in Tarragona.

[6] After regaining possession of the distillery, the Carthusian brothers returned to the monastery with the tacit approval of the French government and began to produce Chartreuse once again.

Despite the eviction law, when a mudslide destroyed the distillery in 1935, the French government assigned army engineers to relocate and rebuild it at a location near Voiron where the monks had previously set up a distribution point.

After World War II, the government lifted the expulsion order, making the Carthusian brothers legal French residents once again.

Chartreuse increased in popularity during the craft cocktail movement of the early 2000s, due to its bittersweet profile and effective marketing of its romantic history.

[12] The book The Practical Hotel Steward (1900) states that Green Chartreuse contains "cinnamon, mace, lemon balm, dried hyssop flower tops, peppermint, thyme, costmary, arnica flowers, genepi, and angelica roots", and that yellow chartreuse is "similar to above, adding cardamom seeds and socctrine aloes.

The exact recipes for all forms of Chartreuse remain trade secrets and are known at any given time only to the three monks[inconsistent] who prepare the herbal mixture.

It is made using the same processes and the same secret formula as the traditional liqueur, and by extra long aging in oak casks it reaches an exceptional quality.

Élixir Végétal de la Grande-Chartreuse (138 proof or 69%[6]) has the same base of about 130 medicinal and aromatic plants and flowers but is more alcoholic.

Chartreuse 1605 – Liqueur d'Elixir (56%) was created to commemorate the return of a mysterious manuscript concerning an elixir of long life to the Carthusian monks by Marshal François Annibal d'Estrées.

[15]: 11 The monks make a Génépi which is the general term in the Alps for a homemade or local liqueur based on Alpine Artemisia flowers.

The basic green offering has won silver and double gold medals from the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.

The Grande Chartreuse monastery
Chartreuse counterfeits
Chartreuse cellars
Old style pot stills no longer in regular use, having been replaced by stainless steel stills
A Chartreuse tasting in the U.S., left to right: Green, Yellow, Liqueur du 9° Centenaire, and MOF Chartreuse products
Yellow Chartreuse
Elixir Végétal de la Grande-Chartreuse
Cuvée des Meilleurs Ouvriers de France (MOF) Chartreuse