What is Chartreuse?
Chartreuse is a spirit infused with 130 different herbs and spices and it was originally created as an elixir of long life. It has amazing complexity and is one of the only spirits in the world that gets better the longer it sits in the bottle.
The original formulation is believed to have been created by an alchemist and gifted to the monks of the Order of Chartreuse in 1605. It has been a closely guarded secret ever since and historically only a handful of people know the entire recipe (2-3 monks in the world). Each monk knows the entire recipe and only 2 monks actively work on the product. One of the monks is responsible for purchasing all of the ingredients and the other monk is responsible for blending the raw ingredients so others can help work on the production process.
More than the contents that are in the bottle, Chartreuse represents a devotion of faith and sales of Chartreuse help to sustain a life of prayer and worship for the monks of the Order of Chartreuse.
Hey Leather Engineer!
I’m going to chime in here on the first question and I’ll ask Chris the second. The glass is from Crate and Barrel, you can find it here:
http://www.crateandbarrel.com/biggs-long-drink-glass/f40200
LOVE those glasses, I just think they look great!
Hey Leather Engineer,
Great question on the lemon drop. I always liked to bring as many lemon components as possible. So you may want to consider infusing vodka with lemon zest, lemon grass, lemon verbena or a combination there of. I like using a honey syrup as well and if you want to increase the sour candy like quality, try blending a little citric acid powder in with your fine sugar for the rim. It will have that sweet and tart punch, just like the candy.
This is a very useful post indeed. Thanks for writing it up! I have been looking for this sort of information pertaining to Chartreuse. One thing I have noticed on my older bottles is that some of the “Wildman” import bottles do NOT have a date code, and the gold band where the date code should be is narrower than on the bottle you picture. In addition, the front labels on the older Wildman bottles look more Kelly green than the blue-green I notice on my date-coded bottle.
30 Nov 2018 I was just given a bottle with no apparent lot number, but “Exemplaire No 924.1393.
Can you tell me the age from that info? Thanks,