"Crazy for Chartreuse" Day in Paris

And what a green (and yellow) day it was...

Although it’s not an official holiday - we have plenty of those in France -, during the first weekend of the month of October, the Journée des Fous de Chartreuse takes place, a day when lovers of the beguiling green and yellow liqueur (informally called Le Club des Fous de Chartreuse, The Club of People Crazy for Chartreuse) gather at Caves Bossetti in the Marais to celebrate and drink our favorite spirit: Chartreuse.

I wrote about the mythical French liqueur in my book Drinking French, which some of us love (and some don’t), but if you’re in the former category, this is the places to meet others who share the same passion.

In my book, I provided some history of the liqueur and its close to thousand-year history in France, but for those who are just joining us, the herbal liqueur is made by Carthusian monks in the French alps, in the town of Voiron. Part of the mystique of the liqueur is that it’s a top-secret blend of 130 herbs and spices that only two monks know the recipe for. They don’t travel together (in case there’s an accident) and only now are they sharing the secret with a third monk, in possible preparation of one of the two monks retiring.

Over the centuries, the monks have faced a lot of difficulties since they first gathered in the year 1084, including fires, rockslides, problems with jealous neighbors, the French government demanding they hand over the recipe, and eventually being kicked out of France. They’ve had their ups and downs over the years and one of my very favorite food books, The Auberge of the Flowering Hearth, details the food in that region which was served at an auberge (hotel and restaurant) that was run by two women. It’s an amazing story told by a well-regarded food writer (who happened to the blind, which was never mentioned in the book) about the meals he had at the inn, and how they procured ingredients from the neighboring farmers, fisherman, butchers, and spirit-makers.

The book also includes some background and history of the monks, and the Chartreuse region. When I wrote Drinking French and was fact-checking it, since I used that book as a reference, a few experts raised an eyebrow at some of the stories about the monks presented in his book, but it’s still a great read and has been very influential to me.

The book was originally published in 1973 and in a subsequent edition, the author, Roy Andries de Groot, clapped back at people who accused him of making things up after they went to the auberge and found out it wasn’t anything at all like what he described in the book. He defended the book, saying everything in it was true, but the auberge had changed hands, hence the discrepancy between what was written in the book and the visitors experience.

(The current auberge that’s there now makes no reference to the book on their website and when I visited Chartreuse while researching my book, I was surprised no one there had heard of his book.)

I’d marked today in my calendar for the annual meet-up, so put on my socks early this afternoon, and headed over to the shop on the busy rue des Archives. The Marais on a weekend is not a place for those who are looking for a bit of peace and quiet, but I managed to navigate the crowded streets of pedestrians who were spilling off the narrow sidewalks, to find a parking space for my bike, which someone had left their handcuffs at. So if you’re missing a pair, no judgements, but they’re at the corner of the Rue des Archives and the Rue Sainte-Croix de la Bretonnerie.