Source: www.thetimes.co.uk/
A decision by French monks to protect their spiritual health by limiting production of a green herbal liqueur has prompted consternation in some of America’s most fashionable cocktail bars.
For centuries the monks of la Grande Chartreuse monastery have been producing their drink to a secret recipe. Now demand for Chartreuse is outstripping supply because of a cocktail revival in the United States – and soon the distinctive bottles bearing the holy order’s crest may become even harder to find. A letter to distributors in January said the white-robed monks, known as Carthusians, wanted to concentrate on their primary task of praying for humanity rather than slaking the growing thirst for their liqueur.
“That letter got a lot of US bartenders fired up with concern about supplies,” said Brendan Finnerty of Idle Hour, a famous Baltimore bar specialising in Chartreuse. “There’s definitely been a scramble for bottles.”
Traditionally the monks have spent their lives in prayer and contemplation at their monastery, founded a thousand years ago by saint Bruno of Cologne in the Chartreuse mountains north of Grenoble. Two of the brothers are dedicated to producing the liqueur, made with a blend of 130 plants, flowers and herbs. They oversee the distilling process with lay collaborators from a company called Chartreuse Diffusion following an ancient recipe passed down through generations of monks and kept in a safe in the monastery.
According to Emmanuel Delafon, Chartreuse Diffusion’s director, the monks arrived at their decision not to boost production in 2021 after “quiet” deliberation among themselves – quietly being how most business is conducted in a community of men who have sworn a vow of silence and rarely interact with each other, let alone the wider public.
“We had been making plans to open a new cellar two years ago but the feeling among the monks was that it was wrong to just carry on producing more and more of the liqueur,” Delafon said at the company’s headquarters in Voiron, a town near the monastery. “They didn’t want to put all of their eggs in one basket.” He said they were “limiting output” to the present level of 1.2 million bottles a year partly out of concern for the environment. “Making millions of cases of bottles would have a negative impact on the planet in the very short term,” he said, adding that under a new system, customers would be allocated bottles according to their needs.
Eleana Zappia, another of the company’s executives, said the monks had recently branched out into making herbal teas and medicinal balms. “Even if the liqueur remains the pillar of their activity, they have taken to heart the idea that . . . alcoholic and sugary products don’t get a good press,” Zappia said.
News of the decision may have taken time to filter into the outside world but appears to have pushed up prices already. An online auction of 1,500 bottles owned by a private French collector recently netted £1.3 million.
Two of the bottles, whose contents were distilled in 1953 to commemorate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, fetched £30,000 each, believed to be a record. All of the bottles were reported to have gone to buyers from America.
What lifts Chartreuse above alcoholic rivals is the intrigue surrounding it. Only a pair of the monastery’s two dozen monks are permitted to know the recipe, each entrusted with half of it. The formula is said to have been written down by a 16th-century alchemist who called it an “elixir for a long life”. It has become the basis of a multimillion-pound business sustaining the monastery and other Carthusian outposts around France. The recipe was given to the monks, famed for their knowledge of medicinal herbs and plants, in 1605 by a French nobleman. After years of experimentation they produced a heavily alcoholic “Elixir Vegetal” still sold as a cure for common ailments, insect bites and sores when applied externally.
“It was even given to children well into the 20th century,” said Maryline Boéro, a guide at a Chartreuse museum in Voiron. “After producing the elixir, the monks got to work on producing a liqueur.” The green variety has a colour named after it; there is also a less alcoholic yellow version.
The monks enjoy a rare taste of their product at Easter but their lifestyle could not be further removed from the indulgence associated with the liqueur.
Finnerty said he first tasted Chartreuse 20 years ago, an experience that changed his life. “It was unusual, it was high proof, it was, ‘Ooh, wow!’ It got me in a lot of places alcohol hadn’t hit me before, like in the nose. The taste changed and lingered.” He added: “We try to educate people, to tell them about the men of faith who produce this drink. It’s amazing that a secret recipe has remained secret for so long.”