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Where has all the Chartreuse gone?
- arthurofbabylon 4y agoChartreuse is an incredible liqueur with an incredible story. See NYTimes' "An Elixir From The French Alps, Frozen in Time" [1]. I see chartreuse's story as an inspiration for craftspeople: great workspace, integration with more abstract values, emphasis on quality, reflecting the landscape. 1 - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/17/business/chartreuse-monks-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/17/business/chartreuse-monks...
- franky47 4y agoLiving in Grenoble (25km away from Voiron where the Chartreuse is made), I welcome this decision. I'd hate to see Chartreuse (also the name of the local mountain range where the monks' monastery is based) become industrialized to the point where its authenticity is lost, for the sake of global market supremacy. For an alternative, try Genepi. It's not a brand name, but another type of artisanal liquor made out of a cocktail of mountain plants and herbs. Taste can be lighter than Chartreuse, but it warms you up just as well after a day of skiing.
- christkv 4y agoIs it not made by the same monks?
- masklinn 4y agoNot at all. In fact, like pastis genepi is a "generic" name, you can get it from any number of companies, and even make your own: the name comes directly from the Artemisia it's macerated from (Artemisia genipi). The recipe is simple enough too: 40 strands, 40 days in 40º, 40 sugar (cubes), for a liter. Though in modern recipes it's usually macerated in pure neutral alcohol which is then diluted to 2x, and the sugar is usually ~halved (but to taste): ~300g sugar per liter is a lot, the goal of the sugar is to mellow the genepi so 100~150g is usually sufficient.
- tmilard 4y agoHere is one brand of génépi.https://distilleriedesalpes.com https://distilleriedesalpes.com A good way to stay focus on my software. Joking
- miniwark 4y agoBut please know the rules to harvest this plants! In many place it's totally forbidden, in other places there are specific rules. Too many people are just badly plucking the plants without concerns just to brag than they have made their own liquor. I you do not know your local rules, then just go buy a bottle.
- BiteCode_dev 4y agoGenepi production is pretty limited itself because of the heavy restrictions on the plant harvest, espacially since it grows mainly in the Alps. And the Mercantour rangers are not tolerant of people picking more than their share. Source, I live there.
- namdnay 4y agoAnd if you do go the distillery, make sure to pick up a bottle of VEP! it's miles better than the oversweet standard stuff
- eqqn 4y agoAs someone who didn't like genepi, I found Verveine du Velay interesting. Perhaps it's less rare herbs, still nice green color, less complex. I also hope the security conference in Grenoble will secure it's supply of Chartreuse (you get a small 50cl bottle in the welcome package for as long as I remember)
- se0 4y agoI studied in Grenoble (near Voiron where the Chartreuse is made) and had a lot of hangover because of it. The "party-cocktail" over there is TNT (Tip'n'top) : Chartreuse / Vodka / Orangina on shooters. Good memories.
- franky47 4y agoSame here (ENSERG/Phelma). I find it funny that the name for Chartreuse + Hot chocolate in English is "Verte chaud" (I'll skip the conjugation error), while it's "Green chaud" in French.
- mytailorisrich 4y agoThat's because marketing people in France have to use English words for everything, for some reason. They think it sounds cool but in this case it is really ridiculous.
- franky47 4y agoYou could argue the same thing in English here (using a French word). But yes I agree we overuse (and abuse) English words. Don't get me started on the misuse of 's.. <facepalm's/>
- grokx 4y agoOr maybe it is to disambiguate "vert chaud" (hot green) and "verre chaud" (hot glass) that are pronounced the same way. =)
- mytailorisrich 4y agoWell that's what happens when you disturb the natural order of things by mixing hot chocolate and Chartreuse ;)
- franky47 4y agoVerte chaude would be grammatically correct, though if there's just a dash of Chartreuse in a cup of hot chocolate, I'd wager the gender of the most statically significant beverage should prevail (Vert chaud). Also chances are you'd drink those from a mug or cup, not a glass.
- mrmincent 4y agoGood on them for keeping focus on what is important to them, not everything has to be scaled out and available everywhere at all times.
- oh_my_goodness 4y agoProbably a good decision even for the customers. Single-malt Scotch blew up in popularity decades ago, and my favorite brands just weren't the same after about the 1990s. I've stopped even trying.
- cnity 4y agoI was born in the early/mid 90s so I haven't experienced what it was "before", but can you expand? I'm a big enjoyer of whisky so I'm interested in what changed for you.
- kimburgess 4y agoI can't talk to as far back as GP, but as someone who's been teetering on the edge of whisky snobbery for the past decade or so: a major change has been a shift to no age statement (NAS). This has been accompanied by an obliteration (either complete unavailability, or equivalent due to costs exceeding sane economic bounds) of older options. The logistics for a product that has a 20+ year lead time are extremely fragile against varying market demands. This isn't inherently bad. There are some mind blowingly good options (Octomore et al) that fall under the NAS umbrella, just a different set of products to what may have traditionally been seen as a defining production technique.
- cnity 4y agoAh I see. You are definitely way deeper down that rabbit hole than I. I got Ardbeg Uigeadail (which I think didn't state its age, like you are mentioning) and thought it was fantastic. Even Laphroaig and Macallan and so on suit me fine.
- tom-thistime 4y agoThanks for asking. For me a lot of single-malt scotch, up until around 2000 (maybe later) seemed never to have been completely domesticated as a normal consumer product. Depending on what kind you liked, it could be almost kind of gross. My favorite in the 1990s was Talisker, which had almost a kind of rotting fish flavor. I have literally tried mixing a dash of fish sauce into today's Talisker to recover that. (Unfortunately that doesn't seem to work.) Talisker now is a bit fiery, maybe very slightly reminiscent of the sea, and otherwise unobjectionable. It doesn't have what I need. I wish them well, but either my taste has changed or theirs has.
- franky47 4y agoChartreuse was featured in Tarantino's "Death Proof" (by Tarantino himself): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTw5lvr7afM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTw5lvr7afM > The only liquor so good they named a color after it (#80FF00)
- joeblubaugh 4y agoGuess us undeserving drinkers in our “third-rate cities” can just go pound sand? Sounds like a good decision for the monks but that’s a lot of condescension for someone who lives in Philly of all places.
- Biganon 4y agoAnd someone who, in response to a decision made by the monks for ecological reasons, chose to take his car and drive dozens of unnecessary miles just to grab all the bottles he could find and keep them to himself. Sounds to me like he should indeed recognize a knuckle head when he sees one.
- WastingMyTime89 4y agoYou might have missed a bit of tongue in cheek self-deprecating humour here. Just saying.
- joeblubaugh 4y agoOn second reading (and some context in the thread about the author), I definitely missed something.
- NotYourLawyer 4y ago2.5th-tier.
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- smdyc1 4y agoSadly, I only recall having this almost 20 years ago. I probably wasn't old enough to appreciate it then. As I get older, I tend to appreciate the depth of flavour and savour these things so such more.
- jamincan 4y agoApparently our sensitivity to bitterness decreases as we age. It explains kids' aversion to cruciferous vegetables and coffee, among others, although I think most of us grow to appreciate those things by our twenties at least.
- AceJohnny2 4y agoChartreuse is a bit weird in that it's a kind of joint partnership between an isolationist monastery [1] and a liquor producer/distributor. I lived near Voiron and did the obligatory tour of the production facility (I already liked the liquor thanks to a friend (hey Iv!), and the place smelled delicious!) They do a good job maintaining the mystique of the Secret Recipe Known Only By A Handful™, which I suppose the monks tolerate and maintain to ensure the steady revenue stream. As one story goes, they were the "first internationally distributed" liquor when the French Foreign Legion loved the stuff and decided to always have some on their campaigns. The Carthusian monks are an isolationist order, with intentionally limited contact with the outside, which dovetails well with Chartreuse mystique. There was a 2005 documentary, Into Great Silence [2], about life inside the monastery, whose filming was granted 18 years after it was first requested! I'm sure Quentin Tarantino already has a good supply of the liquor ;) If you're ever around the Alpes, try and find some genepi [3] liquor (not to be confused with absinthe! Made from same genus, different species,) which you'll find is 70% of the flavour of Chartreuse! (dang, I miss Grenoble) [1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Chartreuse https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Chartreuse [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_Great_Silence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_Great_Silence [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9n%C3%A9pi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9n%C3%A9pi
- kerrsclyde 4y agoBuckfast Tonic Wine, in the UK is produced in the same way. And it has been much maligned, linked with many alcohol related crimes, particularly in Scotland. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckfast_Tonic_Wine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckfast_Tonic_Wine [2] https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/scottish-news/7702950/buckfast-crime-scotland-police/ https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/scottish-news/7702950/...
- mabbo 4y ago270mg of caffeine and 112ml of alcohol per 750ml bottle. Like three strong coffees and seven shots of vodka in a single serving. I truly think it ought to be taxed heavily to repay the costs that society bares for it's existence.
- Barrin92 4y agowell the answer is easy, it's all on Larry Wall's homepage: http://www.wall.org/~larry/ http://www.wall.org/~larry/
- imwillofficial 4y ago“satisfying the demands of some knucklehead mixologist doing his little riff on the Last Word at some lame speakeasy in some third-tier city.” This has to be the shittiest most pretensions statement I’ve read all year.
- vintermann 4y agoMaking millions of cases does not make any sense in today’s environmental content and will have a negative impact on the planet Interesting that they make this argument, and not the rather more obvious one that their 55 ABV spirit, like all spirits, is going to be overwhelmingly consumed by people who drink way too much.
- Nursie 4y agoHave you got any context for that claim? (Context for the question - I barely drink spirits, but I used to enjoy them quite a lot at a time when I drank more in general, and I'd be interested to read about it, whether this is common etc)
- vintermann 4y agoHere's a summary with references: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/f98f97b1-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/f98f97b1-en#section-d1e6167 https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/f98f97b1-en/index.html?i... There's little reason to think expensive, exclusive spirits are exempt from this pattern.
- Nursie 4y agoIt looks like the results are for all alcohol, rather than specifically spirits. I was kinda/sorta expecting something specific to stronger alcohol being disproportionately consumed by those who also consumed other alcohol. Like if 50% of all booze is consumed by 10% of the population who are heavy drinkers, does that skew to 90% of spirits? Interesting read anyway.
- poooogles 4y agoPeople who drink way too much don't drink £55 a bottle spirits. They drink £20 a bottle spirits.
- vintermann 4y agoNot all top consumers are so poor that they have to go for the cheap stuff. Also, if you're one of the people drinking it once a year, twenty of you is worth one of them to the producer. It doesn't take many such people to swamp you, consumption wise. I rented a cellar apartment in one of the most expensive neighbourhoods in my country for some years. (I got it cheap because the owner mostly just wanted someone to be there when she was away, also there was no real kitchen). Other than me and the au-pairs I met on morning jogs, everyone there was probably obscenely rich. And I'm no expert on those things, but the bottles I saw lying along the roads on those jogs didn't seem like the cheap sort.
- swalling 4y agoArtificially limiting production on a secret recipe liqueur is a great tactic for turning what could be a commodity into more like a Veblen good. The opposite has happened to Campari, where you can now buy a ton of different red-hued craft aperitivo with similar flavor profiles. The article missed out on mentioning the best Chartreuse-based cocktail though: The Last Word. It’s absolutely sublime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_word_(cocktail) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_word_(cocktail)
- callahad 4y agoAlas, the Last Word was mentioned in passing, just not especially favorably: > It’s honestly inspiring that the monks refuse to see their earthly purpose as satisfying the demands of some knucklehead mixologist doing his little riff on the Last Word at some lame speakeasy in some third-tier city. Which is a shame, because it is a fantastic cocktail.
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- smcl 4y agoI'm quite amazed by the concentration of ugly opinions the author managed to squeeze into one relatively short sentence! I thought cocktails were meant to be fun, that they were meant to be riffed on and explored. I guess if you're from a "third rate" city that doesn't apply.
- starkparker 4y agoConsidering the author's occupation (author of acerbic, often self-deprecating liquor-related books), location (Philadelphia), and the article's recipes (which include the Bijou, a Last Word contemporary that's also an equal-parts gin and Chartreuse cocktail garnished with a cherry), I suspect that passage is at least a little tongue-in-cheek. Also considering that this is a subscription newsletter, I suspect his audience also suspects that, and this audience doesn't. Anyway, Wilson's 2009 thoughts on the Last Word:[1] > Over the years, I've championed Chartreuse in drinks such as the Bijou (equal parts Chartreuse, gin and sweet vermouth with a dash of orange bitters) and the Scofflaw (Chartreuse, rye whiskey, dry vermouth and lemon juice), and maraschino in drinks such as the Aviation (maraschino, gin, lemon juice and a dash of creme de violette) and a frothy alternative to the margarita called a Prado (in which maraschino replaces Cointreau). > But perhaps the finest use of both liqueurs is together in the Last Word. This is a Prohibition-era cocktail invented at the Detroit Athletic Club and resurrected a few years back by Murray Stenson at Seattle's classic-cocktail haven, the Zig Zag Cafe. Its fame has spread as far and wide as the classic-cocktail movement itself, spawning numerous variations. > With the huge, bold flavors of Chartreuse and maraschino mixed with gin and lime, the Last Word is definitely not a poolside drink, and definitely not for the appletini crowd. It's a thinking person's drink. A drink with a swagger. 1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/28/AR2009072800436.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/0...
- capgre 4y agoInteresting. I live in Tarragona, the Spanish city mentioned in the article where Chartreuse was produced for a period of time. This left a profound mark in the city and nowadays Chartreuse is closely associated with the town celebrations, specially the main annual festival, Santa Tecla. The traditional drink for this festival is called "mamadeta" (which has clear innuendo in Catalan that I'll let you figure out), which is 1 part green Chartreuse and 2 parts yellow Chartreuse mixed with lemon granita ("granissat de llimona"). It is a bit pricier than the standard glass of beer but definitely affordable to pretty much everybody, including young people, so it was a bit shocking to see the prices listed in the article. I wonder how the reduced production will affect its consumption or even its presence in the celebrations going forward. *Edit: spelling
- nickreese 4y agoHey! We spend a ton of time in La Pineda/Vila-seca and I've never met another tech person there. Ping me, would love to get together with another HN member.
- anentropic 4y agoI was wondering if there was a local version or similar liqueur still being produced there?
- nickreese 4y agoClosest thing in Tarragona is Hierbas de Montserrat... similar but quite different. Also look into DOM Benedictine.
- abricq 4y agoIn times such as now where there are strong forces acting to push for more production and consumption, for less thinking about the quality & sustainability or impact of our consumption, I applaud their efforts ! This kind of act is simply great, it questions about the meaning of our productive system: do we produce because we simply want to sell more / becoming richer ? Is it possible that we produce for the sake of keeping a tradition alive, or to share what is locally available without disrupting the locality ? These monks have just made clear answers to these questions.
- birriel 4y agoIncidentally, as a color, it's one of Larry Wall's favorites. http://www.wall.org/~larry/ http://www.wall.org/~larry/
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- canadianfella 4y ago[dead]
- baby 4y agoIt’s interesting how Chartreuse is this normal thing in Europe but seems to be this cultish cocktail i ingredient in the US. I personally prefer drinking it straight or in a Chartreuse tonic (some restaurants in Lyon serve it like a gin and tonic and it’s fabulous)
- kasey_junk 4y agoIt wasn’t really a cult ingredient before the recent shortage. It’s in a lot of cocktails because it is great and was readily available. But you’d also just drink it neat after coming in from doing winter sports and it was almost a cliche that bartenders would finish their shift with a shot.
- nemo44x 4y agoOnce hipsters discover something it’s all downhill.
- fknorangesite 4y ago> hipsters Is it 2008 again already?
- nbaugh1 4y agoYellow Chartreuse and tonic is/was one of my go-to hot weather drinks.
- bravura 4y agoSo how do I buy yellow chatreuse? Because I need to make more Death Flips https://punchdrink.com/articles/death-flip-became-modern-classic-jagermeister-chartreuse-cocktail-recipe-black-pearl/ https://punchdrink.com/articles/death-flip-became-modern-cla... 'When the cocktail first appeared on the menu at the Black Pearl in Melbourne, Australia, in 2010, no ingredients were listed. And if you asked what was in the drink, the bartender would not tell you. The only thing offering the customer a hint as to what they were getting into was the ominous description: “You don’t wanna meet this cocktail in a dark alley.”'
- badcppdev 4y ago"Yes, I bought all three bottles, sorry." I think this sentence is worth pondering in a modern world.
- justzisguyuknow 4y agoThe author lost me at "some lame speakeasy in some third-tier city".
- tacker2000 4y agoFunny how the author manages to misspell the first occurrence…
- totalhack 4y agoMy friend and I once asked a bartender for the absolute worst drink he could make. He came back with straight green chartreuse. It did not disappoint.
- usrme 4y agoI once tried a cocktail based on chartreuse and it was definitely something. Can't say I would recommend anything based on chartreuse to anyone. It's a really, really peculiar taste, though if you are adventurous then by all means!
- giraffe_lady 4y agoI guess they didn't have malort on hand.
- totalhack 4y agoI've had malort! It's definitely worse!
- barry-cotter 4y agoA bartender once told me the next shot was free but I’d almost certainly throw up. That was my first time drinking Captain Morgan. I did the same thing to a guy in a bar and he didn’t make it to the bathroom. The power of suggestion is pretty wild since it tastes fine, a nice enough spirit.
- 2-718-281-828 4y agoHow would you go about creating something Chartreuse-like yourself? Take some guess with what herbs and flowers might be used and soak it in Vodka for half a year. I wouldn't be obsessed about exactly replicating the taste. Who knows some variation on it might even taste better.
- jrochkind1 4y agoI enjoy making my own infusions. Have you ever done it? Have you ever tasted Chartreuse? In my experience, it's going to take a lot of practice to make something with the complexity of chartreuse that tastes good. If you're just starting out, I'd suggest starting with only 1 or 2 or maybe 3 ingredients, to get a sense of what they actually taste like. If you put a dozen or more things in there, it's going to be hard to guess how to tweak the taste when it actually tastes pretty bad.
- dendrite9 4y agoHere's a place that supposedly broke down the recipe in the 1800s. https://punchdrink.com/articles/berlin-distillery-decoded-rare-spirits-chartreuse-drambuie/ https://punchdrink.com/articles/berlin-distillery-decoded-ra... Since you enjoy making your own infusions you might be interested in this book. I don't drink all that much and it is almost all beer, wine, or cider, but I enjoy lots of the stranger, more flavored liquors. I have been experimenting with infusions myself but in a fairly undisciplined way and with small batches. https://www.kitchenartsandletters.com/products/italian-liqueurs-history-and-art-of-a-creation-p https://www.kitchenartsandletters.com/products/italian-lique...
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- jrochkind1 4y agoThey don't share the recipe though, ha! I also enjoy the herbal/bitter liquors!
- kenneth 4y agoUnlike the author, I do not applaud the artificial limiting if supply. I find it incredibly annoying that it's become impossible to find Chartreuse and that the prices are skyrocketing. It's such a key and irreplaceable ingredient in many cocktails. Unlike a fancy whiskey or whatever, there is little you can substitute for it, so I'm not unable to get my orders at many of my favorite cocktail bars.
- ocimbote 4y agoI want to think this comment was meant as a praise to the drink, but it sincerely rang as a selfish rant about how unhappy you are because your favorite cocktails will be harder to find.
- lovich 4y agoWhy should anyone not be unhappy that their favorite cocktail is harder to find? The article tried to paint the monks in a favorable light for limiting their production for environmental reasons but the phrasing rings hollow to me. They didn’t stop all production, or release the recipe to the world. They merely limited their output which, much like many companies with monopoly power are currently finding, allows them to have a higher price per unit, while no one can come in and compete in their market.
- brookst 4y agoManaging lots of production is more work and work of a different character than managing small production. They are happier managing small production. It’s odd to fault them for that. Do you work every hour you possibly could? Would it be reasonable for someone to complain that you owe them more work because they would really like it if you worked more?
- bradleyjg 4y agoI think there’s a middle ground here. It’s very understandable that the monks don’t want to ramp up production. But being monks they also don’t need to acquiesce to the logic of the global market where their product will inevitably become the sole province of the rich. For a contrast see the Westvleteren Trappists who have taken significant efforts to prevent a Pappy van Winkle situation.
- scop 4y agoFor anybody curious about the Catholic and monastic spirituality of silence, I would recommend a profound book: The Power of Silence by Cardinal Robert Sarah It’s final chapter is in fact a discussion with the Carthusian Master Dom Dysmus himself.
- forgotOldLogin 4y agoIf you like chartreuse and want something in a similar vein, I'd highly suggest Strega, an Italian herbal liqueur often stocked on the same shelf as chartreuse.
- klodolph 4y agoNearly every popular branded liqueur or aromatized wine has a number of substitutes available, but it sometimes takes research to know what they are. Easy to find Kahlua alternatives; it’s a coffee liqueur and that’s not hard to find. A little more challenging to find a Campari or Cocchi Americano alternative. There are lots of similar options and it’s not obvious whether an aperitif liqueur is a substitute for Campari or Aperol, for example. Nice to know what the Chartreuse alternatives are.
- Pxtl 4y agoYes. The alcohol world's fixation on everything being strictly-controlled names makes the process of finding substitutes absurdly tedious. Like if I want bourbon but I don't want to support the red states that make it, there's no coherent term for "caramel-tasting corn-heavy whiskey".
- werdnapk 4y agoAnd now watch a select few buy up as much stock as they can with an attempt to flip it for a much higher price.
- bradleyjg 4y agoThe is something depressing about a world where everything has been arbitraged away. The joy of going into a thrift store or garage sale and finding a diamond in the rough is disappearing.
- standardUser 4y agoOn the flip side, I can find almost anything I want on eBay and that was totally impossible 20 or so years ago. I'd say there is vastly more available to us all than in whatever yesteryear you're imagining.
- NotYourLawyer 4y ago> Chartreuse will now only be sold exclusively under allocation, making it much more difficult to find. Allocation sucks. Just raise the price.
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- iSnow 4y agoWeird, I could just buy it off Amazon for 60 EUR/bottle and up.
- jxf 4y agoI didn't even know Chartreuse was something you could drink; I always thought it was just the name of a color.
- dsfyu404ed 4y agoOh come on... Quality > quantity is probably the most common trope in upper middle class westerner culture. A niche product manufacturer going all in on low volume high quality isn't "refreshing". It's just good business and knowing your customer.
- taskqa 4y ago[dead]
- JackFr 4y agoFascinating fact: one of the 5 people who know the secret Chartreuse formula is a parish priest at the Church of Notre Dame in upper Manhattan, Fr. Michael K. Holleran. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/17/business/chartreuse-monks-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/17/business/chartreuse-monks... 'When he departed the site in 1990, he became the only living outsider to know the liqueur’s ancient formula. “It’s safe with me,” he said. “Oddly enough, they didn’t make me sign anything when I left.”'
- yohannparis 4y agoIf you have a bottle, please try the Monks' Picnic[1] It will make your backyard parties smoother. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/recipes/monks-picnic/16446/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/recipes/monks-picnic/16446/
- tptacek 4y agoIf you owned a high-end liquor store, is this good news or bad news?