400 year old hooch

2005, as well as being the 50th anniversary of Le Corbusier's Notre Dame du Haut chapel at Ronchamp, and the 60th anniversary of the end of World War 2, is the 400th anniversary of the famous Chartreuse Liqueurs.

That's interesting, innit?

Only two monks have been entrusted by the Order with the secret of producing the liqueurs. Only these two know the ingredients. Only these two know how these ingredients are prepared for incorporation into the base of wine alcohol. What little is known is that some 130 herbs, plants, roots, leaves, and other natural bits of vegetation are soaked in alcohol for an unknown length of time, then distilled and mixed with distilled honey and sugar syrup before being put into large oaken casks and placed into the world's longest liqueur cellar for maturation.

I laugh gently at this, because while we were in France, my mother in-law treated me to a glass of her 24-year-old home-made not-Chartreuse, which she made from a recipe given to her by "a friend" who had been given the recipe, so the story went, by "a monk".

It involved the purchase of 5 litres of 90% alcohol and a long list of other ingredients, which had to be sourced from a variety of places so as not to raise eyebrows and alarums. In fact, the alcohol was purchased in half-litre quantities from different chemists for the same reason.

Crazy. And not strictly legal. But delicious. A smooth, warm, aromatic drink that went down a treat.

Not much left, unfortunately, but the recipe is still there, scribbled on a piece of paper.