Chartreuse comes from the Alps (Isère), and was brewed by the monks of the Grande-Chartreuse. The drink's history is pretty interesting to read about[1].
There are actually two kinds of Chartreuse, one green (easiest to find) and one yellow. The recipe supposedly containing over 100 medicinal herbs, Chartreuse was originally sold as a "health elixir" rather than a digestif. To this day the recipe is still held secret in the monastery, although production has scaled up.
As you may have guessed, it's one of my favorite liqueurs and has become my go-to "last drink" (after a big meal, when my guests leave).
Also, if you ever go skiing in the Alps, you can mess with the locals of Savoie by asking for a Chartreuse rather than a Genepi[2], a similar drink from there.
The drink [0] is actually still kind of produced by the monks. The brothers Chartreux, who have all taken vows of silence by the way, collect the medicinal herbs in their remote mountain valley where they live. They live in a castle [1] that looks like something out of the Harry Potter franchise by the way. Each of them has his own multistory rowhouse. Anyway, the herbs they collect make up the mixture, which makes up the drink, then it is brought to the nearby distillery where it is distilled. What's changed from the old days is that they don't do the distilling in the monastery. And there's actually still a Chartreuse "health elixir" [2], me and my partner buy them for our grandmas. It comes in little bottles that are put in a wooden cast-sort-of thing that opens like a matroska. You drink one teaspoon at a time, it's around 60 degrees, it has a different herb mixture, and I think it has less sugar. If you're ever around that region of the alps, the valley of the monastery is a nice place to hike.
(I wonder if Mr Wall is a dog person or a cat person type. I just realize now that having a cat stomping around could explain the look of some perl code... mmhh)
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And thanks for the three rules maybe now I might explain my manager why my laziness is good
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