Vintage Chartreuse

I spent a day poking around at estate sales in Long Island with a good friend a few weeks ago and had the good fortune to raid someone's liquor cabinet before anyone else got to it.  I bought four bottles of booze, two whiskeys - one a blended Scotch called Black and White and another nearly empty bottle of moonshine labeled "pot still whiskey".  The third was chosen only for the bottle and label.  I doubt I will ever open that ancient bottle of Freezomint but I'll enjoy it's artificially colored glow on my liquor shelf.

The true find was a 3/4 full bottle of Chartreuse.  I've been doing a lot of research the past few years on herbal liqueurs and amaros and have read abbreviated versions of many of the old recipes.  Of all of the old formulas Chartreuse is the only one still made by Carthusian monks.  They have been making it continuously since 1605.  Other liqueurs have claimed to be made by monks but in reality are made by large companies.  Benedictine, for instance, is an invention of Alexandre Le Grand who made up the story of the liqueur being a medicinal recipe of the Benedictine Monks in Normandy.

Chartruese is a secret recipe of more than 130 herbs and "secret ingredients".  The formula is based on a recipe for an elixir of long life from an alchemical manuscript given to the monks.  The monks intended their liqueur to be used as medicine but the beverage became so popular that in 1764 the recipe was adapted to what is now Green Chartreuse.  In 1838 they developed Yellow Chartreuse, a sweeter version colored with saffron.  Only two monks have the recipe at any one time and they are the only ones who prepare the herbal mixture.

I took the vintage bottle to my local watering hole, the magical Barbes in Park Slope, one Saturday afternoon and presented it to the bartender who expertly removed the rotting cork without getting any in the bottle.  We poured a glass of the vintage and a fresh glass from the bar.  To my amazement there was a woman sitting at the bar who had just written a paper on Chartreuse for her French class.  I sat with her comparing the two liqueurs and taking notes on anything that jumped out at me.  Each sip revealed something new.  One sip would coat my mouth in angelica, the next in mace, then mint, then vanilla as I swallow.  I know that Chartreuse is sweetened with honey which is much more apparent in the vintage bottle.

I've been macerating herbs for the past couple of months to make herbal liqueurs.  One of them, a creation of my own which reflects the herb garden at 6/15 Green Community Garden, has a strong similarity to Chartreuse.  Angelica is the predominant note in chartreuse and the garden happens to have a healthy specimen.  I used the fresh green leaf and stalk, dried root that I dug up last fall and the seed I had collected.  I used nearly every other herb growing in the herb patch including chamomile, lemon balm, hyssop, mint, rosemary, basil and sage and fresh spices from the Park Slope Food Coop like cloves, mace and saffron as well as some dried herbs from my collection.  This is my second year in a row creating a liqueur from the garden and I'm hoping this year's will be better for the few tweaks I made in the recipe.  It's strained now and aging while I ponder which honey to use.  I'm hoping to get some local Brooklyn honey at the farmer's market to keep it as local as possible.  I'll be serving my elixir come holiday time.

Cologne Experiments

I'm having way too much fun riding out the heatwave researching old forumlary on the internet in search of cologne and toilet water recipes.  After years of collecting fragrant herbs, dried flowers, roots, powdered gums, tree resins, barks, citrus rinds and spices I wanted to see if macerating in vodka would produce results.  All of the old recipes I found used essential oils, absolutes and tinctures but I wanted to see what I could come up with with just the raw ingredients.

I've started two traditional cologne recipes, a violet water, something akin to 4711 and a Florida Water, as well as one true experiment.  It's been about ten days and I can already tell which ones have promise and staying power.  My plan is to let them sit for 30 days and then strain them off, filter them and let them settle.  Then I'll pour off the clear liquor and blend it with hydrosol.

When deciding on what to use for each experiment I'm still thinking like a perfumer and making sure I have top, middle and bottom notes.  I've been aging some orris root powder for a number of years now and it's developing a subtle sweetness that I hope the tincuring will release.  I also have powdered benzoin, cedar bark, vanilla pods and vetiver roots to play with.  Dried roses and lavender make up the bulk of the heart note but I'm also using a generous supply of jasmine sambac flowers that I've dried over the past year.  The linden blossoms that I collected last year have found their way into one as well.  For top notes I have citrus rinds that I dried over last winter including mineola tangerine and meyer lemon.  From my herb garden I've added sweet woodruff, lemon verbena, lavender, basil, sweet annie and rosemary.

So far I'm loving the process and the romance of it all.  When I was a child my grandmother bought me some cologne that I used as a kind of splash.  I have such fond memories of warm summer nights splashing on her cologne after a bath and going to sleep smelling sweetly.

I'm also enjoying using the fruits of my labor over the years, and feeling like a real apothecary.  I looked around during the process and thought that it looked like a film set of an apothecary at work, yet it wasn't contrived at all.  I find I'm repeating to myself, "oh, true apothecary".

Cocktail Lab, Summer 2012

Lychee vodka being filtered

When Lucy Raubertas, the writer behind Indieperfumes and the inspiration for the Clarimonde Project, asked me if I'd be interested in conjuring up some cocktails for a book release party for a perfume writer I had to say yes.  The connection between fragrance and cocktail crafting has become somewhat seamless lately.  My liquor cabinet is overflowing with fragrant tinctured vodkas, some of which have wound up in a few of my cologne experiments this summer.

After some seriously delicious cocktails at NoMad with Lucy, the author Alyssa Harad, and Maria McElroy of Aroma M Perfumes it was decided that Maria and I would come up with two cocktails based on two of her perfumes.  She decided on Geisha Blanche and Geisha Green, Blanche being a fresh, summery fragrance of white flowers and lychee, while Green is a creative take on absinthe, although mellowed with black currant, mandarin and violet.

Lychees macerating in vodka for First Blush

After our first meeting we had a general idea of how the two drinks would be and had a list of possible ingredients to have on hand for Cocktail Lab.  I brought in veteran Lab assistant Lori Firpo to sit in with Maria, Lucy and I.

For Geisha Blanche we settled on lychee vodka to start.  After struggling to find a good mixer that would still fit the fragrance profile we settled on champagne with a little lychee juice.  We decided on tuberose and jasmine to mimic the white flowers in the perfume which are added to the drink as well as misted over the top before serving.  We call it First Blush

Black currant vodka was the basis for our rendition of Geisha Green.  Boylan's Creme Soda was the perfect compliment and picked up the tonka note in the perfume beautifully.  Wormwood and the natural isolate alpha ionone (with the characteristic scent of violet) were added to tone down the sweetness of the drink and pick up the absinthe notes of the perfume.  Meet Jaded!

First Blush

one jigger lychee vodka

one generous jigger lychee juice (Ceres brand)

one jigger champagne

two drops jasmine dilution, 5%

two drops tuberose dilution, 5%

spray of tuberose and jasmine

Combine the vodka, juice and dilutions in a shaker, mix well and add champagne.  Pour into a martini glass and spray with tuberose and jasmine.

Jaded

one jigger black currant vodka

two ounces Boyland Creme Soda

one drop alpha ionone dilution, 10%

one drop wormwood dilution, 5%

Combine the ingredients in a cocktail shaker, shake well and serve strained in a martini glass. 

Black currant vodka is made by finely chopping 1/3 cup dried black currants and pouring one cup of vodka over them in a jar with a tight fitting lid.  Shake daily and macerate for up to one month.  Strain and store in an airtight bottle.

Lychee vodka is made by peeling and chopping 1/3 cup fresh lychees (including any juice) and placing them in a jar with a tight fitting lid.  Pour one cup vodka over and shake daily for up to two weeks.  Strain and store.