Green Chartreuse has been my favourite liqueur for a long time. I first came across the herbal liqueurs many decades ago and immediately found them interesting. They include
- Chartreuse
- Vieille Cure (sadly long gone)
- Benedictine
Green Chartreuse is intriguing as it was just about the highest strength liqueur available at 55% ABV (110 proof.) I expected it to taste like firewater. It doesn’t. It has a difficult to describe complexity which comes from the 127 herbal and spice ingredients. I also like the fact that it’s still made by monks from a recipe going back to 1764. How cool is that? It’s also a recipe only known to 2 or 3 monks at a time. They are a silent order of Carthusian monks too. I love the history and the back story.
I was quite happy back in 80s and 90s that few people knew of Chartreuse, let alone what it tasted like. Green has always been my preferred product but the slightly honey-touched sweeter yellow is a fine liqueur too. It’s also lighter at 40% ABV.
Nowadays it seems everyone else is catching on. In 2020 and the evolution of Covid, the development of more cocktail making at home, meant that worldwide demand for the liqueur doubled! In theory that is great. More people are now enjoying what is one of the world’s great liqueurs. However this is going against the ‘direction of travel’ for the monks.
Production has been limited
The Carthusian monks who produce the liqueur aren’t happy with it’s growing popularity. They have said that they are concerned about “the environmental impacts of production, and the monks’ desire to protect their monastic life and focus on solitude and prayer.” The resulting combination of fixed production and increased demand has resulted in shortages of Chartreuse across the world. And the inevitable price rises. I notice that comparing a bottle I bought recently with one I bought in mid-2023, the price has risen by nearly 40%.
Do you know where the secret code is on your bottle of Chartreuse?
There is a secret code on the neck of each Chartreuse bottle. Have you ever noticed that? 6 digits. It tells you when it was made and bottled. Neat huh? The first 3 digits tell you how many years after the monastery was originally founded in 1084, it was produced. So in the picture (left) this bottle was produced in 2024. 1084+940=2024. The next 3 digits tell you which day of the year it was bottled. So, 011 means the 11th January. I love the ‘in the know’ nature of this stuff.
I hope to be drinking Chartreuse for many years to come but it looks like it’s getting a more expensive habit. Which will inevitably slow sales.
Great Chartreuse cocktails
There are a couple I particularly like. The Last Word is a classic and there are many variants and riffs of this particular cocktail. It’s short, spirity and a delicate shade of pale green. It looks great, especially with egg white giving it a frothy top. This is my preferred version. Ordinarily I would never thought gin, green chartreuse, maraschino and lime juice would work as a combination. But it so does! Last Word details here.