Chartreuse

Description

The Chartreuse is an alcoholic drink with strength from 42 to 72 vol. In production, they use medicinal herbs, roots, and nuts. Belongs to the class of liqueurs.

Chartreuse is an elite French liqueur from 130 herbs, spices, seeds, roots, and flowers. A variety of natural ingredients create a rich palate. Spicy, sweet, pungent, and medicinal shades change with a bouquet of deep notes after 2, 3 sips, and herbal aromas play with nuances. The drink’s strength varies from 40% to 72%, and the recipe is the secret of the holy fathers of the Carthusian order.

The creation of the drink is shrouded in a veil of ancient legends, according to which the prescription drug elixir was handed over to the Carthusian monks of the order of a Marshal of France françois d Estrom in 1605 in the form of an old manuscript.

For a long time, the drink recipe was of no use. It was of the fairly high complexity of the art of cooking. However, monastic pharmacist Jérôme Maubec set a goal to implement the prescription. In 1737, he produced the elixir and started to deliver it to the residents of Grenoble and Chambery’s cities as medicines.

The drink became popular, and the monks decided in 1764 to create the green “liqueur of health” for mass sale. After the revolution in 1793, monks started to pass it from hand to hand to save the recipe. Subsequently, the manuscript fell into the hands of the pharmacist Grenoble Leotardo.

Secrets

Following the laws of the time, the Ministry of Napoleon I’s interior tested all the secret recipes of drugs. The government has acknowledged inappropriate production of elixir and a recipe returned to Leotardo. Only after his death, the recipe went back into the walls of the monastery. They restored the production. Then the monks produced the first yellow type of the Chartreuse (1838). There were several cases of persecution of monks and confiscation of property, and demolition of the plant, but in 1989 it established a permanent production of the liqueur Chartreuse.

The technology of liquor production still is a strict secret. We know only a small number of herbal ingredients: nutmeg, cinnamon, fruits of the bitter orange, cardamom, IRNA grass, celery seeds, lemon balm, St. John’s wort, and others.

Chartreuse Interesting Facts

After repeated attempts to unravel the mystery, Jerome Mobeca, the monastery’s apothecary, still managed to read the mysterious document and, according to the recipe, created a healing elixir.

Since then, the drink has been marketed as the “Elixir Vegetal de la Grande Chartreuse” (Herbal elixir Grand Chartreuse). The health liquor of the same brand has been produced as a digestif since 1764. Many troubles and threats, the verdict of the French Ministry of the Interior of Napoleon Bonaparte, expulsion from France, and the long, but temporary, justification of the monks in Spain (Tarragon) did not break the seal of the secrecy of the drink. Since 1989, Chartreuse has been produced exclusively in Voiron, France.

Three main and three special liqueur Chartreuse types

They differ in color, strength, and formulation. The main concern:

1. Green Chartreuse. Exclusive type acquires its color due to its member 130 species of herbs. This beverage is best in its pure form as a digestive and as a component in cocktails. The strength of the drink is about 55.
2. Yellow Chartreuse. When using the same set of ingredients as for green Chartreuse, but significantly changed the proportions, in particular saffron. As a result, the drink becomes a yellow color and is more sweet and less strong (40 vol.).
3. The Grande Chartreuse. This drink is closer to an herbal balm. Its strength is about 71. People consume it in small portions (not more than 30 g) or a cocktail grog.

For a special treat:

1. V. E. P. Chartreuse. A liqueur of the same technologies that the green and yellow Chartreuse but uses the longer aging time in wooden barrels. The strength of the drink is about 54. for green and around 42 – for yellow.
2. Chartreuse 900 years. This is a more sweet version of green Chartreuse, which monks created in honor of the anniversary (900 years) causes of the French monastery of Grand Chartreuse.
3. Chartreuse 1605. The drink, produced according to the ancient recipes with intense flavor and aroma, was created in honor of the 400th anniversary of the manuscript’s transfer with the Carthusian monks’ recipe.

Chartreuse to treat Digestives and based on preparing a large number of cocktails. Traditional is Episcopal, tonic-Chartreuse, France-Mexico, Chartreuse champagne, and others. While cooking, they use this liquor to flavor chocolate, coffee, ice cream, pastries, and some meat and fish dishes.