A first-of-its-kind guide to the 400-year-old spirit, including its history, resurgence, and 35 recipes for cocktails and sweet and savory dishes.
Chartreuse, a spirit based on a 400-year-old secret recipe and made exclusively by Carthusian monks in the French Alps, is in the middle of a resurgence. Created as a medicinal elixir in the 1700s, Chartreuse’s popularity waxed and waned through a revolution, two world wars, Prohibition, and a mountain collapse before it gained renewed popularity during the cocktail revival of the 2000s.
In The Little Green Book of Chartreuse, authors Jordan Mackay, an award-winning spirits journalist, and Paul Einbund, owner of The Morris, the restaurant whose world-class Chartreuse collection helped usher in its revival in the U.S., distill their knowledge and passion in this unique overview of the liqueur.
Parts 1 and 2 of this comprehensive and beautifully photographed guide take readers through Chartreuse’s history and early development, its ingredients and distillation process, and how to buy, store, serve, and collect the spirit. Part 3 offers new and vintage ways to use the spirit in 25 cocktail recipes, including the pre-Prohibition Brandy Daisy; the martini-adjacent Alaska Cocktail; and The Last Word, the drink that saved Chartreuse from the dustbin of forgotten spirits. The innovative cocktail recipes are accompanied by ten sweet and savory Chartreuse-based food recipes including a Coconut Chartreuse Marshmallow, Elixir Végétal Asparagus with Butter, and a Chartreuse Chocolate Pot de Crème.
Along the way, The Little Green Book of Chartreuse wanders the elusive green spirit’s long path to the present: its evolving forms, its obsessive collectors, and its delirious role in the world of cocktails, old and new.
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