Chartreuse, historic Carthusian monastery estate, birthplace of the iconic herbal elixir, framed with Dynamic Cellars wave de

Pères Chartreux

Chartreuse is a herbal liqueur made by the Carthusian monks, an order founded near Grenoble in 1084 by Saint Bruno. Its recipe traces back to a manuscript given to the monks in 1605 and fixed in 1764 as the Elixir Végétal de la Grande Chartreuse. The softer, sweeter yellow Chartreuse followed in 1840.

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In 1605, Maréchal François-Hannibal d'Estrées gave the Carthusian monks of the Vauvert monastery, in Paris, a manuscript describing a recipe built on 130 plants. The formula took more than a century to complete: Brother Jérôme Maubec fixed it in 1764 at the Grande Chartreuse monastery, as the Elixir Végétal de la Grande Chartreuse. Green Chartreuse followed in 1840, based on the same recipe. That same year, Brother Colomban and Brother Bruno Jacquet worked out a softer, sweeter version: the yellow Chartreuse, later nicknamed Reine des Liqueurs.

Production has moved several times over four centuries, following the monks' expulsions and returns. Their own distillery, built at Fourvoirie in 1864, was destroyed by a landslide in 1935 and rebuilt at Voiron, where the Carthusians distilled their liqueurs until 2017. New safety regulations then forced a move to a site the monks already knew: Aiguenoire, in Entre-Deux-Guiers, which they had used for fish farming and agriculture from 1618 to 1791. The new distillery was inaugurated on 30 August 2018, four hundred years to the day after the Carthusians first acquired the land; a bottling line was added there in September 2020. Yellow Chartreuse is bottled at 43% alcohol.

At Dynamic Cellars, the Pères Chartreux range in stock is built around yellow Chartreuse: the Chartreuse Yellow Liqueur, and the Reine des Liqueurs gift box in its 2022, 2023 and 2024 bottlings. It belongs to our spirits and fortified wines selection.