Why Chartreuse is the best Colour to ever touch my lips
What is it about chartreuse that means that us bartenders use it to separate those people who pretend to enjoy alcohol to those that actually have an unequivocal appreciation for it? Why do we use the brilliantly green liquid as a tool to separate the men from the boys?
We need to start at the beginning but not, as most would think, at the historical solidity of the distilling monks to fully understand what we are dealing with. When the bar gets a brand new shiny bottle of Chartreuse, what is the first thing that we notice? It’s the colour of course.
“It’s a vivid, electric color. Happy, even. It’s the inside of a perfect avocado, a bed of Scotch moss or the belly of a lovebird. Chartreuse is halfway between green and yellow — a yellowish green, a greenish yellow. But the spectrum within this color ranges from bright lime to light sulphur.”
The colour of Chartreuse, because it is actually a colour, evokes us to look at it as a piece of poetry that bounces up and down on the colour spectrum. Shouting at us and willing us to stand up and notice that’s its there and it means business. The best thing about this colour is that it is not man made and the best thing about the spirit is that It’s actually the only naturally green spirit there is.
so a colour that hits us so hard in the eyeballs obviously detonates the curiosity within us as bartenders. maybe we separate the men from the boys with chartreuse because we feel as though the artisan within us all is awakened by the colour. for others to appreciate the drink they must think in the same way that we do. they have to look at the colour past the ‘prettiness’ of man made colours and really see the true beauty in the natural colour of Chartreuse. It’s nature in a glass bottle.
