There is a word which has the effect of a time capsule on me : Chartreuse. Like a detonator, the word triggers a panorama of immutable images and sensations from my childhood : that of my maternal grandfather's liquor cabinet where his Chartreuse liqueurs held a privileged place, the sugar soaked in elixir that our grandmother gave us during the countless (tortuous) journeys made as a child between the Loire Valley and our house in the Alps, the black and white photo of my maternal great-uncle Dom Louis-Paul Rousseau on his way to exile, at the time deputy prosecutor of the Grande Chartreuse and who lived in the monastery until his manu militari  expulsion in 1903, the smells of camphor and dried plants in the pharmacy where my dear mother worked all her career, the génépi liqueur that we used to make in the summer with my sisters under the 'alchemist' instructions of our grandfather.

In short, this liqueur has a very special place in my heart : I even owe to it  my inclination, at the age of twenty, towards the wider world of "wines and spirits". And over the years, in the pursuit of this passion, which I have developed into a profession that brings me into contact with a good number of spirits lovers, I have come to realise that virtually every one of them has a very personal relationship with Chartreuse liqueur. "It is not something you come to by chance" : the immortal and spiritual liqueur weaves a link with each and every one of us that intertwines spirituality, history, savoir-faire & tradition, mysticism, but also handing on, epicureanism, the  values of sharing and of contemporaneity.

The secret origins surrounding this long-life elixir or health liqueur elaborated from a mysterious manuscript dating from the beginning of the 17th century, along with the persistence of its confidential nature – only two people know the formula – and the vicissitudes of the history of its production fully contribute to its lore and reinforce the atmosphere of legend that continues to enchant Chartreuse enthusiasts.

A geographical massif, a religious order, a liqueur and a colour (Chartreuse green), the name Chartreuse most probably comes from the Franco-Provençal patois “Chartroussa” meaning turned over or ploughed meadow, and designates the toponymy where the first dwellings were implanted in this remote setting of a pre-Alps massif, between Isère and Savoy.

The origins of the Carthusian order go back to 1084 with the arrival of six monks led by a monk from Cologne, Bruno (Saint Bruno) who settled there with the help of Hugues, Bishop of Grenoble. They created a hermitage, the foundation of the monastery and the Carthusian order, which was recognised in 1184 by the papacy. In the 14th century, at the height of the order, there were 150 active Carthusian monks, who answered to the Father General, the prior of the Grande Chartreuse monastery. The spiritual doctrine of the order was hermit silence and solitude and it existed in virtual self-sufficiency. “ Stat crux dum volvitur orbis ” (the cross remains stable while the world turns) is the motto of the monastery’s emblem.