Tasting Notes for Green Chartreuse:
Aroma: Pungent, complex, herbal nose with angelica, pine lime cordial, peppermint, tonka bean, anis and cocoa.
Taste: Strong stuff in every respect with herbaceous and fresh vegetal flavours. The complex flavours include lime zest, mint, pine, aniseed and tobacco.
Finish: Peppermint and aniseed with ginger heat.
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Chartreuse dates back to 1605, when monks received a gift of an ancient “elixir” manuscript from Francois Hannibal d’Estrées, Marshal of King’s Henri IV artillery. It was supposedly an “Elixir of Long Life” and consisted of a complex blend of 130 herbs and plants blended together to create a tonic. The monks sent it to the Mother House of the Order, La Grande Chartreuse, at the beginning of the 18th Century, where a practical application for the formula was devised in 1737. Not ones to miss a branding opportunity, the monks adapted the elixir recipe in 1764 to create a milder version that is known today as Green Chartreuse (55% abv). The popularity of this new version of their liqueur spread beyond their local vicinity, and the monks were on the road to success.
Today, only two Chartreuse monks know the identity of the 130 plants, how to blend them and how to distill them into this world famous liqueur. They are also the only ones who know which plants they have to macerate to produce the natural green and yellow colours. And they alone supervise the slow ageing in oak casks. -
The Chartreuse monastery is tucked away in Vauvert, a small suburb about 3 hours outside the centre of Paris, and it took the monks in this order 132 years to unravel the complex recipe of Chartreuse.
In 1605 the monks received a gift of an ancient “elixir” manuscript from Francois Hannibal d’Estrées, Marshal of King’s Henri IV artillery. It was supposedly an “Elixir of Long Life” and consisted of a complex blend of 130 herbs and plants blended together to create a tonic. The origins of the recipe are uncertain, but it’s believed to have originated from a 16th century alchemist.
It was still very early days in the understanding of Herbalism, and so the monks at Chartreuse were only able to grasp and understand fragments of the recipe. They kept the manuscript to themselves, but eventually sent it to the Mother House of the Order, La Grande Chartreuse, at the beginning of the 18th Century.
This is where the real work began, and the monastery’s Apothecary Frère Jerome Maubec, began an in-depth study of the recipe to unravel it’s mystery. It took him until 1737 to decipher a practical formula for the Elixir of Long Life, and it is thought that he made some of his own changes to the original recipe.
Today, the “Elixir of Long Life” is still being made, and only by the Chartreuse monks using the same ancient recipe. It’s full name is “Elixir Vegetal de la Grande-Chartreuse”, and this strong health liqueur is 69% alcohol by volume.
Not ones to miss a branding opportunity, the monks adapted the elixir recipe in 1764 to create a milder version that is known today as Green Chartreuse (55% abv). The popularity of this new version of their liqueur spread beyond their local vicinity, and the monks were on the road to success.
The French Revolution in 1789 put a minor kink in the monk’s plans, when all religious orders were ordered out of the country. But the enterprising monks at the Order of Chartreuse made sure to retain the recipe to future generations.
The monks were allowed to return to their monastery in 1816, and 22 years later they developed Yellow Chartreuse (40% abv), which is sweeter and milder than the Green Chartreuse.
All went well at the monastery until 1903, when the French government nationalised the Chartreuse distillery, and they eventually sold the trademark “Chartreuse” to a group of distillers who set up “Compagnie Fermière de la Grande Chartreuse” that was in existence until 1929 until it went bankrupt.
The shares from the sale of the distillery were bought by friends of the monks, and the monks regained ownership of the Chartreuse trademark and resumed production of the true Chartreuse liqueurs at Fourvoirie, France. Until it was later transferred to Voiron, where it remains today. -
Volume 70cl ABV 55%