The monks of Chartreuse who make the eponymous herbal liqueur have announced their intention to cut back on production for religious and environmental motives.
A 2023 letter to distributors states that the Carthusian monks responsible for the distinctive French liqueur have decided not to increase the volume of production to meet increasing demand but would rather be “limiting production to focus on their primary goal: protect their monastic life and devote their time to solitude and prayer.”
The monks have no desire to grow production “beyond what they need to sustain their order,” the letter declares.
Chartreuse liqueur advertising in Country Life magazine UK 1951. (Geography Photos/Universal Images Group via Getty)
“Making millions of cases does not make any sense in today’s environmental context and will have a negative impact on the planet in the very short term,” the letter asserts.
Because of this, the monks have made the “strategic decision” to put all their markets, including France, “under allocation” and will henceforth work exclusively “with our core and historical markets.”
“Basically, we look to do less but better and for longer,” the letter says.
According to everydaydrinking.com, the decision to reduce production had already been made “quietly” in 2021 and a “growing Chartreuse shortage started being noticed by spirits enthusiasts during 2022.”
Since the sought after drink will now only be sold exclusively under allocation, the website added, it will be “much more difficult to find.”
File/26th December 1953/Brother Laurent, a Carthusian monk mixes the ingredients for the famous Chartreuse liqueur in a factory near the monastery of the Grande Chartreuse in Dauphine, south-eastern France. (Bert Hardy/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Chartreuse is available in green and yellow versions that differ in taste and alcohol content and has been made by the Carthusian monks since 1737, according to a secret recipe recorded in a manuscript by François Annibal d’Estrées in 1605.
To this day, the recipe is only ever known by two monks at a time.
The liqueur was named after the monks’ Grande Chartreuse monastery, located in the Chartreuse Mountains north of Grenoble. Today the liqueur is produced in their distillery in nearby Aiguenoire and is composed of distilled alcohol aged with 130 plants, bark, roots, spices, and flowers.
It is from the iconic 110-proof liqueur that the color chartreuse derives its name.
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