Fran\u00e7ois Hannibal d\u2019Estr\u00e9es<\/a> provides a recipe for an \u201celixir of long life\u201d to some monks of the Carthusian order. They take the recipe back to their grand monastery in the mountains outside Grenoble, and start cooking and distilling the formula, which uses over 130 herbs and flowers in a wine base. The result is a liqueur that is intended for medicinal purposes but, since it also happens to be rather tasty, the brothers can\u2019t resist having a nip every now and then.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Carthusians keep the recipe secret \u2013 to this day only two brothers know the full ingredient list \u2013 and they don\u2019t share their elixir with the outside world for over a century. But the word slowly gets out, and in 1764 the monastery decides to produce it for public consumption. It\u2019s a huge success. Folks are entranced by the liqueur\u2019s sweet, spicy, pungent taste. But even more noteworthy is the elixir\u2019s color, a vivid yellow\/green.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unfortunately, fame comes at a heavy price. In 1793, the monks are expelled from France, and manufacture of the elixir ceases until 1838, when the monks are allowed to return. In 1903, the French government outlaws the distillation of the elixir, and the monks move their operations to Spain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Each time the monks leave, counterfeit versions of their elixir appear. But the recipe is so complicated that no one can quite replicate the flavor or, perhaps more importantly, the legendarily distinctive color of the original. It\u2019s a color that is exactly halfway between yellow and green, which earns it a place as an official tertiary hue in the graphic arts world. Specifically, the color is (127, 255, 0) on the RGB color wheel, and (50, 0, 100, 0) on the CMYK spectrum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After World War 2, the monks bring their operations back to France. Today, distillation of the liqueur goes on at the place where it started. The elixir is produced \u2013 with the exact proprietary flavor and color \u2013 in that one monastery in the mountains high above Grenoble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the name of those mountains, that monastery, that flavor, that color?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chartreuse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colorful Spring Pop Quiz: What word denotes a flavor, a monastery, a mountain range, as well as a color The backstory begins in Paris in 1605, when a French alchemist named Fran\u00e7ois Hannibal d\u2019Estr\u00e9es provides a recipe for an \u201celixir of long life\u201d to some monks of the Carthusian order.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":975,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/chartreuse_monastery_in_spring.jpg?fit=800%2C535&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2039,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2038\/revisions\/2039"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}