Chartreuse — a color better known these days as "Brat Green" – gets its name not from a herb or a flower as one might expect, but from an alcoholic beverage. More accurately, chartreuse gets its name from an alcoholic beverage named after a monastery, which is itself named after a French mountain range. Sounds a bit confusing, right? Not if you know your facts about the Carthusian Order of monks.
The beverage itself is a light green liqueur made from over 100 different plants and flavored with sweet spice notes and a deep, herbaceous funk. Chartreuse has such a strong taste that, even when used as a mixer, it's recommended you only use a small amount. Verte chaud, which uses chartreuse as an , suggests 2 ounces of the green stuff.
Meanwhile, other cocktail recipes recommend you add less than a full measure – still more than enough to make bright . But despite its vivid color and the explosion of flavor it provides, chartreuse comes from a sober, decidedly non-Brat environment. Chartreuse is produced by French monks High in the Chartreuse Mountains, near the city of Grenoble in southeast France, sits the Grande Chartreuse, a chateau built on the original monastery site of the Carthusian Order.
Today, this is still where the Order lives, works, and worships, allowing no visitors with very few exceptions. Director and documentarian Philip Gröning wrote a letter asking for permission to film the monks, which was granted almost 20 years later. The result was "Into Great Si.