Chartreuse 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!
It's equivalent to 'bum wines' in the US. Huge market would be teenagers and problem drinkers. They absolutely drink it in a single serving, it's an incredibly cost effective, high sugar way to get out of your mind. We certainly employed its dubious abilities in my teens.
In college we used to mix Sparks or Four Loco with Vodka -- "maniac juice".
Nothing good ever came of it. Redbull mixed with anything e.g. Jager, was also known to lead to terrible things. Sort of an entry level cocaine and scotch.
It is a bit funny that Four Loko got this reputation, when alcohol+caffeine have been helping people make bad decisions faster for ages (it isn’t like the FDA is gonna somehow ban rum and coke).
Because there's practically no caffeine in a rum and coke.
Very fuzzy napkin-math incoming: if you were to consume an equivalent amount of caffeine as a Four Loko via rum-and-cokes, you've now had about 50oz of rum. The caffeine would, uh, not be the problem.
Edit: Hm, though maybe this says more about my "rum, wave a Coke over it" preferences.
Haha, that could be it. I guess it is a mixed drink anyway so you could do whatever, but coke has a pretty overpowering taste, so if you want to taste the rum, you’d have to go pretty strong I guess.
Fair, another comment mentioned Red Bull and Vodka which would probably have been a better example, but I suspect that’s more a case of “we’d ban it if we could.”
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen or heard about rum and coke resulting in the same effects as four loko or vodka Red Bull. Could be the formula, could be the intent of the drinkers. I don’t think it’s a cognitive bias, but there is a rowdiness at a party with a keg and then there is a different level at a party with 40s.
Ah, Buckfast gets ya fucked fast. I remember splitting a bottle with friends on a few occasions when doing a semester abroad in Ireland. Even then we didn't particularly like it, but it was a cheap buzz when we were young and less discriminating.
While looking to see if Buckfast was explicitly banned from import, I did a Google search for '"buckfast tonic" site:gov' giving two hits, one of which was a cardiology report about a 16 year old who'd reported to the ER after drinking it mixed with Red Bull. Yikes.
I'm not an expert, but I think it's different in that Buckfast is licensed to big commercial distributors but Chartreuse production is quite restricted - hence the current situation. It sounds like this monastery doesn't want to industrialize production in the same way.
Yes, the Dolin génépi is good, I really like it. It is no chartreuse, though. The closest I have seen to a mystic revelation is when I had a glass of green VEP (that’s the aged chartreuse; the one I tried was from the 1940s). It’s a life-changing experience.
Maybe the lack of chartreuse will help selling Bénédictine and génépi. I need to find new cocktails, though, I quite enjoy a Last Word.
Could anyone on HN give some insight as to what these 130 might be? to my knowledge, we don't even have 130 edible spices/plants growing naturally in France!
Of course there are more than that. Look at any comprehensive guide book on edible/foreageable plants and you'll definitely find more than a couple hundreds. For example, the plants for a future database (https://pfaf.org/user/Default.aspx) lists thousands of edible plants that grow in temperate climates. Many plants are edible if only for some parts and many are not particularly tasty and/or need some preparation.
> we don't even have 130 edible spices/plants growing naturally in France!
I counted 44 here*, but that’s only because I stopped just before the letter B. There are loads of edible and medicinal plants in France, as in much of the world.
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
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_Great_Silence
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9n%C3%A9pi