Barrel to Bottle, quick sip! Lexi. Hello. You went on vacation. I sure did. And you went to the temple of something that we all know that you love. Oh, yeah. And you brought it back to share with us. What do you got? So, I went to France, and everyone's like, oh, we should drink wine in France. And my first thought was, oh, we should probably get chartreuse in France. So, I went to France, and everyone's like, oh, we should probably get chartreuse in France. You can get French wine anywhere. Without having to know the secret handshake to get the chartreuse? Yeah. Or pay through the teeth. A million and one dollars. Yeah. So, we went in, I don't know, an hour before they closed. And- To where? To the chartreuse store front. In Paris. Paris. Yeah. They have two locations. They have two locations in the world. And it's at the actual- Monastery. Yeah. Monastery. Yeah. Whatever it's called. And then one in Paris, which is like an hour and a half away. So- Conveniently located. It's like the old Forrester Experience. Yeah, really? Yeah. Something like that. There's a Sazerac House in New Orleans on Canal Street. It's like the same concept. But the downstairs, they do this tour. It's kind of like a museum experience. I skipped right ahead. Do they have one monk who has to work there? Just like they send, he gets to go. It's kind of like shore leave for the military. Like one monk gets to go to Paris and hang out every weekend to be there. Did you see a monk? No. Oh, did you look for a monk? There's a little sign that says, next monk appearance 45 minutes. The monk has stepped out. It's like when they roll out the characters at Disneyland and some kid pulls on their tail. I haven't drink any alcohol since I've been back, so I'm gonna shock my palate for a second. Yeah, sorry. So anyway, you've got a little six pack of airline bottles. Yeah, so we went to the store and they had this big giant jar of all these green candies, and they were chartreuse candies, so that excited me first. Spoiler alert, they're delicious, but we'll try them at the end. Then I saw all of these different bottles of chartreuse, at which point I was like, wait a minute, there's, no, no, no, there's green and then there's yellow and then there's like an old one that they probably only have in France. No, if you are in France, they have six that are kind of readily available. What's the plural of chartreuse? Chartreuse. There are six chartreuse. Yeah. So we've got six chartreuse. Green is the first one. We've got yellow. They described them to me, which again, there's a little bit of a language barrier there, but I think I figured it out. We have an aged yellow and an aged green. Then we have nine centenar. I don't really know. Nine year. It seems like it was a celebration one, so it's a mix of the age together. Nine hundred year. Yeah. I don't know. I guess. Then there's one that's a mix of the two, right? Or is that three or five? That one. Then there's- They also all look very similar. Delixir. Yeah, very similar. This one is 1605, so I don't know if it was originally made in 1605 or what the true story is on that. But the Chartreuse story. We'll try. True. I'm disappointed that the yellow and green mixed one was not blue. That's true. That doesn't make sense. But that doesn't- It's the yellow is just like a less green. It's not like yellow. Yellow and green together makes blue. Neon green and- But neon green and green together. You know you're insane, right? No. Are you doing a bit right now? It's a Ziploc thing. No, it's not. No, the Ziploc thing is yellow and blue make green. Oh, you're right. I can't have a moron. You are not allowed to cut that. Okay. You have to keep at it. The first one is just regular? This is regular plain. Oh, gee. Okay. This smells like Chartreuse. This is Chartreuse. This is Chartreuse. Just green Chartreuse. Okay. Minty. I octane. Bitter. Herbal. Kind of sweet. Sweet. Pretty sweet, actually. Black licorice with a kiss of something fruity in there. Yeah. Elderflower is soft and floral. Yeah. That's delicious. Man, every time. Yeah. It's always just so good. Yep. Dang it. Can't have any. Can't have any. No, it's starting. I can't have this. Now, Chartreuse is definitely starting to come back, but we're seeing more and more, but it's definitely allocated and it's not typically abundant on the shelf just because there's not enough to go around still. All right. That's the classic. Something else that I noticed in the store is a bottle of Chartreuse in the States is like, what, 100 bucks roughly? 80. I think 80 for regular green Chartreuse, I believe, something like that. Okay. At least from us. At the Chartreuse store, it's 45 year, 42 euro. Get out of here. That's five years ago prices. Yeah. I don't know the actual conversion on that, but that's. The craziest part about Chartreuse too is, when I started with Binny's in Champagne, we were closing out Yellow Chartreuse. Yeah. I mean, that was how that product went in a lot of stores, because they're so expensive and esoteric, and now it's like Pappy. Yeah, it is. The herbal liqueur. The green Pappy. Yeah. All right. Yellow Chartreuse, is that what this is? This is, no, this is 16, 1605. So this was described to me as aged green. It could very well taste the exact same. I don't know, but we'll try it. I mean, it looks different, but it smells a little more like my grandpa's cologne. It's more tingly on the palate, like peppery, like spice. Yeah. Which could be barrel. Could be from a barrel, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Peppery, green pepper, capsaicin, even. Yeah, which is totally different from the heavy, like it is like, it's like spicy and like, it's almost like a like hot sauce spicy. Yeah. Yeah, that's weird. That is weird. Cool. I don't hate it. No, I like it. The chartreuse herbalness seems to be toned down. Yeah. Probably from the aging. Yeah, a little mellow on that side, but mellow on the chartreuse side. Well, then up the pipe pepper spice kind of component. I would also say it's equally as sweet, but since there's that peppery thing, that it seems perceptibly less sweet because it's balanced against something that's a little harder edged. Yeah. Yeah. And wow, tingly, tingly. I really can't find much about this online, about the 1605, besides the fact that it was made as a celebration thing. So, I think they probably aged it, and then here we are. I'm not totally sure. This one has a lot more bitter finish, like it's still, the bitterness is still building. Yep, yeah. If you're ever in France and you happen upon some of this, get a bottle for me. I like it. So, do they have full bottles of this stuff? They had full bottles of- Or 375 bottles or something? Everything except, I think the nine, no, the nine they did. I think this was the one, there's the two aged ones they didn't have, but we were at a wine bar in France, and we saw these massive bottles of chartreuse in the back bar and so we of course asked what the heck is this about. I guess the stores and the bars and things in France are allotted these bottles per hospitality group. So if you have a bunch of restaurants, one of them can hold these giant bottles, but you can't just buy a bunch for all of your- No. So I thought it was cool. In France, how are they consuming this? Was this in cocktails like we would make? Are they sipping it after dinner or did you- Or is it like America 10 years ago where the bottles were just sitting there and no one ever has them? I don't think I went to enough cocktail bars to know. Okay. The one cocktail bar we- Well, I mean, it was a wine bar first, and they had a cocktail menu, but we- Sure. Bottle of wine, keep it moving. Okay, yellow. Yellow. It's so syrupy when it pours out. I haven't had yellow in a really long time. What's the difference between one of them has a bow? Lower alcohol with the yellow, different mix of herbs and spices. Like this is earthier. That was very different. To me, less of that, it's like the darker side of herbs rather than like the, I felt like the regular chartreuse was brighter, fresher. This is earthy. The darker side of herbs is my favorite Procol Harum album. Yeah, that's a good one. Have you guys ever had an Absinthe Frappe in just in life? Have you ever had one of those, like a proper one? I don't know what that is. It comes over pebble ice and it's like absinthe and like soda water or something. Okay. It's just served in this cup. You stick a straw in it like a gin and tonic kind of situation, but pebble ice specifically. I feel like these, if it wasn't $7 million, would be such good frappes. We were at a French restaurant in Louisville, of all places, and the dessert they had was pineapple sorbet with like, they'd made these gastronomic beads of chartreuse that went on top of it. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. So save your chartreuse and just pour a little bit on your some pineapple sorbet. Dan, Louisville is named after King Louis. Yeah, but that- And they have the fleur de lis all over the place. Yeah, but I mean, come on, let's be honest. I know. It's a ham town. It's a great town. But is it a ham town? We eat ham. Yeah. Okay, so the next one is, I'm so not French and I can't read this. I don't know, people online are calling it the MOF. Yeah, I've heard of it. You guys can try to pronounce that if you would like. Who's got a crack at French? I can barely speak English. French via Michigan, you two. I mean, Detroit, everything in Michigan, they're either named after indigenous names or French. It's French or indigenous, everything. Mackinac, Detroit, Grand Rapids. Detroit. Okemos. Okemos. Rapide de Croix. This says it was made in collaboration with the French court of Masters Sommeliers. They liked a certain profile, so they made one starting in 07, and they basically collabed with the monks to make this. Classic monk collab. We've had beers with Vain-Stefan and St. Bernardus joining up, which aren't technically monks anymore. Right. We're at one time. Not a huge surprise. This dials down the intensity a little more. It's it's more thoughtful. But there is a whiff of bubble gum across the top. I'm getting like savory, like almost like a basil oregano clove, like pizza topping hungry. The Italian pizza topper seasoning spice blend that I got from the spice house and have it used for two years since that faithful father's day where they thought I needed to make more thin crust pizza. I know what you're talking about. I mean, it's good. I don't know that it's remarkably different enough that I would pay premium for this. It's way less sweet. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. That's what it is. Yeah. It's it's more Venice. It's now that's just in my brain. Sorry, Lexi. Cloudy. Yeah. Soft plush plush. Soft, easier. Yeah, it's easier. Less weighty and a similar herb profile. Yeah. Yeah. But the underlying spirit seems a little like easy going. Yeah. I feel like it's still got that peppery situation like that aged one. Not as intense, but yes, I think so. I'm sorry to backtrack here. It says that the 1604 or 1605 is the one we just tried. It's supposed to replicate the original recipe. So I guess it's changed a little bit over time, probably as things become available or not. You think they used Wyrmwood once upon a time? They could still be using some. I mean, that yellow is pretty earthy. Yeah. I mean, that could be a touch of Wyrmwood. I mean, but I don't know, this would be a much better, like Rob would, you know, he gets more excited about this stuff. Not that I don't like it. I just, my brain's already full of information. It's going to be okay. So this is number nine, nine. What's that word? Sentinels? Nine sentinels. So this one was introduced in 84 to commemorate the 900 centuries, nine centuries, 900 years, since the foundation of the Chartreusean order. So it's a mix of yellow and regular, but it's a two-to-one mix. I bet you back then their robes were brown. I feel like they probably still are. They were started white back then, but now they just get brown. They think everything's green. It's like Oz. I mean, isn't it nice that we just can shower every morning and it's not a problem? Or night, or whatever you like to do. You thought it was going to be a podcast about six different chartreuses, but it's a reflection on modernity and human advancement. I'm not going to lie. This is six different movements in the same symphony. They're not too far off from each other. Oh my god. Uh-oh. I love this one. It's got like a dark chocolate bitterness. Yes. Oh, wow. That's good. I mean, it's just like, again, it's just degrees off, but it's like, it has a pop. That's just a blend of the two? Yeah. Wow. It's a 66% yellow and the rest green. All right. Yeah, this one reminds me more of oregano and pizza than the other one, I think. I'm a nose too. I'm getting that after. I got a lot of dried spices, dried green herbs. Is that the show? No. Oh, no, there's one more. One more. We got the genepy last. What's a genepy? It's about, I don't know, 40 bucks. Stop it. It's a bitter liqueur, right? What's a Tim Conway? I wish I had a big sheet of information about it, but all I have is this cute little box that came in with a photo of the Monastery on it. Dan, do you have any spiels on genesy? Genepy, the one that most stores have, I forget the brand, but it comes from House Alpenz. It's Dolin. It's Dolin Genepy. So this one that we have, we would sell as a Chartreuse alternative before we had a flood of a bunch that were better as Chartreuse alternatives. This is still very good stuff. Yeah. And the best way I've ever had this is you put a shot of this into hot chocolate on a cold winter day and it's unbelievable. That's featured on- What's that guy's name? Jake Parrott. Jake Parrott gets you too? Yeah. Probably. I heard it probably originally heard on one of these podcasts. Yeah, we did. We did a Quarantini's, Quarantati's from our houses during the Pando. Yep. So that was quite delicious. Yeah. So this is like floral. Yeah, very floral. Well, it's very straw colored, even lighter than just any of these yellowish. Kind of like a little like lemon peel or something on the nose. Yeah, it's brighter and fresher. I like that a lot. I'm smelling pine when I smell the smell of glass. Yeah, it's like that when spruce tips used well in a beer that has that citrusy aspect kind of thing. Yeah. And mint. Even from oregano and mint, it's a brighter herbal. I don't know what the Dolin Genepy tastes like, but this, I think you could put genepy in place of chartreuse and not really lose much, not lose many steps. Let's try Dolin Genepy. I used to work at a cocktail bar that used green chartreuse in one of the regular cocktails on the menu. So we had a lot of bottle touches and I forgot how sticky it is. Yeah, that's, I mean, very similar. Maybe a little, maybe I just it's in my head, but it has that Swiss Miss Cocoa character kind of sweet milk chocolate. This Dolin one is a lot more like grapefruit, grape, green grape. Green grape. Yeah. Okay. It's a lot sweeter. We've tried the Elixir too from them. We've tried that on the podcast. That's the high potency one. It's essentially used at bitters. Right. So our recommendation, if you can't get chartreuse, it comes in a little wooden bottle. Well, it's a wooden case that has the bottle inside. You use a chartreuse alternative, then put drops of this elixir in that as treat it like a bitters. Then in that bottle is all the, it's a concentration of all the flavors that are in chartreuse. So that's a good way to get around not being able to get a bottle of chartreuse. That's an almost all of our stars and orderable if it's not in a star. So there's also orange chartreuse, Oda V, chartreuse Anisette, chartreuse VEP and Myrtle chartreuse that are available at the monastery. What is orange chartreuse? No idea. According to the little research I've done, the biggest collection of chartreuse that you can order to try is in Chicago. At the office, which is in West Loop. It's like a fake speakeasy spot. Do not go there expecting to spend less than $60 a person. For one countdown. Be sound experienced on accident. That's where I guess you can get the most in the States. Interesting. Interesting. Chicago always pulls through. We do love to drink. All right, I'm sweet enough, but in the name of science. Science. So we have little, they look like bonbons and green foil. Oh yeah. And they say chartreuse on it, very tiny. So I went to the store and I saw the big jar of green candies, so I had to buy those as well. I've had about six of these since you brought them here. Oh, that's good. Really good. That's good. I know, they said, these are so strong. I don't think so at all. I think they're pretty muted. It's like a cute little sweet version of chartreuse in a candy form. Unlike the Malort Candies. Malort Candies, pretty heinous. Remember Hop Candies? Oh, absolutely disgusting, not meant to be a thing. This is nice. I like this a lot. Also, this is truly one of those, a one, a two, a three, three licks to the center. The packaging says Bon Bon Bon, yeah. What's this? Bon Bons. It says Bon Bons on the packaging. Yeah, these are Bon Bons. Oh, Bon Bons were ice cream. Well, that's what Peggy Bundy ate. Oh, ice cream? But a true Bon Bon is like a hard French candy with a filling in the middle. All right. Chartreuse Bon Bons. Go get them. Chartreuse. If you're in Paris, go. Yeah. It's cool. And if you don't go there an hour earlier, if you plan on it, they have a little bar. You can drink frozen chartreuse cocktails. What? Does it slush? I know. I know. When we realized, I was mad. I have no way to go. Cool. All right. This was great. Lexi, thanks for sharing. Of course. Green. Greg was like, you don't want to share those with us. Drink those at home. I was like that. And I was like, well, my boyfriend's going to say, I'll taste like chartreuse, so. So you got to hear our crass takes on it instead. Cool. Thank you for sharing. Of course. And hope you at home enjoyed, and maybe someday can get an opportunity to try some of this cool stuff. We like tasting. We like sharing. Even if it's not completely available to us all the time. Let us know what you think. Hit us up at comments.binnys.com. Thank you for listening to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Back in your feed next week with something more serious, less sweet. Till then, I'm Greg. I'm Jim. I'm Dan. And I'm Lexi. Keep tasting.