Boozehound (13 page)

About a year after St-Germain launched, in 2008, I finally did make it to the French Alps during elderflower season, when I visited, on a sunny alpine Sunday, the Chartreuse distillery in the small town of Voiron, near Grenoble.

Chartreuse is about as old-school as liquor gets. In fact, Chartreuse’s story may be the granddaddy of romantic liquor industry tales. The liqueur is famously made from a secret blend of 130 herbs, flowers, and spices dating back to a alchemical manuscript titled
An Elixir of Long Life
that was given to the Carthusian monks in 1605 by a French military officer. The full recipe is known only to two Carthusians—each of whom knows only half of the formula, and both of whom have taken a vow of silence. The story goes that these two monks occasionally leave the solitude of their cells—in a monastery at the top of a mountain—in order to distill and barrel the liqueur. And, when they’re through, the monks return to their cells and their quiet life of prayer and meditation.

I didn’t get to meet any of the monks, of course, what with them having the vow of silence and living in solitude at the top of a mountain and all. I did, however, meet a public relations director named Florence Donnier-Blanc. I also met a number of young women working in the tasting room, who wore (yes, it’s true) chartreuse-colored business suits.

On my tour of the “longest liqueur cellar in the world” (and who knew that
length
of cellar was important?), I was assured that the monks still keep a close eye on the process. But most questions went unanswered. How long does Chartreuse age in the barrels? “We don’t know,” Donnier-Blanc said. “The monks decide when they’re ready.” Are there really 130 ingredients? “We suppose,” Donnier-Blanc said, “but we have no way of knowing for sure.”

In Voiron, they sell a version of the original Élixir Végétal, based on the original recipe, which comes in a wooden bottle and is 71 percent alcohol by volume. It’s said to be a medicinal curative. “The Élixir really works,” Donnier-Blanc said. “My mother gave it to us when we had a bad stomach. You can rub it on a bee sting, and in twenty minutes, it’s gone.”

The monks cannot export their Élixir Végétal to the United States, however, because the FDA mandates that ingredients have to be described in full on labels, meaning the Carthusian secret would be irrevocably revealed. EU rules already require that Chartreuse list gluten-containing ingredients, causing some consternation in Voiron.

Chartreuse is one of the few liqueurs that are aged, and the extra-aged VEP (
Vieillissement Exceptionnellement Prolongé
) bottles can sell for upward of two hundred dollars. The rarest, most expensive bottles of Chartreuse in the world are those that were made before and during a period of exile. In 1903, the French government tried to nationalize the distillery, and the monks, unwilling to give up the secret, moved to Tarragona, Spain. “The quality of nineteenth-century Chartreuse has never been equaled, and of course it is one of the very few liqueurs that benefits from aging,” according to the United Kingdom–based rare spirits dealer Finest & Rarest. Today, the mythic “Tarragona” bottles of Chartreuse fetch €800 or more. Most Americans have to make do with the standard green (at 55 percent alcohol by volume) and the yellow (at 40 percent alcohol by volume). Both offer complexity—herbal, floral, vegetal, peppery, sweet—that’s hard to pin down, and both suggest tastes that predate the modern world. Neither is predictable or boring, and I always find new elements when I taste them, though the yellow is definitely more rounded and honeyed.

After my tour of the distillery, I really wanted to walk up to the Grand Chartreuse monastery. Claire, one of the tour guides, volunteered to accompany me—and she seemed pretty happy to slip out of the chartreuse uniform and into normal clothes. As Claire and I hiked, she told me Chartreuse was having a tiny surge in popularity at her university in Grenoble. The maker often sponsors parties thrown by the students. But the students certainly were not sipping it as a
digestif
, as their grandparents did: “Among young people, Chartreuse is almost always served in cocktails, never by itself.” And what’s the most popular spirit among kids her age? “Vodka, of course,” she said.

The hike up to the monastery on that afternoon was beautiful, and we passed families, troops of boy scouts, teenage lovers, and even a few old men wearing berets. It made me so happy to be in the mountains again, and then in the same moment, it made me kind of sad and nostalgic. When I was in Vermont, I always imagined I’d live in a place like this, someplace where there was excellent skiing, and mountain herbs from which secret elixirs were made, and perhaps alpine girls who wore chartreuse to work. Claire cheerily pointed out wild herbs like gentian and génépi, surely part of the secret recipe. We saw some elderflowers, and I asked Claire, “Do little men with mustaches and berets ride bikes into the mountains to harvest these?”

She looked at me like I was crazy, so I launched into the story of St-Germain. “Do Americans really believe this?” asked Claire, her laughter echoing through the Alps. She continued to laugh for several more minutes, until we drew close to the monastery and the sign that noted we were entering a “Zone De Silence.”

Nearly twenty years after the summer of my backpacking trip with S., I had the opportunity to tour the inner sanctum of the Jägermeister plant in Wolfenbüttel, Germany, a cozy town of half-timbered homes about an hour from Hanover (meaning it’s pretty much in the middle of nowhere). In fact, when I asked whether it was worth sticking around Wolfenbüttel for a day of sightseeing, the reply from the Jägermeister people was “Unfortunately there’s nothing more to see in this area.” Jägermeister corporate headquarters sits outside the center of Wolfen-büttel, and when you arrive, you are met by a rug that says, in bright orange, “Achtung WILD!”

The continued popularity of Jägermeister is undeniable. More than 2.8 million cases are sold in the States annually, part of more than 6 million cases total sold worldwide. Jägermeister is the best-selling liqueur in the States, according to the industry analyst Beverage Information Group. Yet because of its viral popularity, and also because Jägermeister is most commonly consumed in shots by young people, the liqueur has a mixed reputation among the spirits cognoscenti. There’s its association with heavy metal bands such as Metallica and Slayer; its mingling with Red Bull in the infamous Jäger Bomb; the big, branded tap machines that bring chilled shots to the masses. Whatever the reason, Jägermeister is rarely discussed in serious spirits and cocktail circles.

In the first edition of his ratings compendium,
Kindred Spirits
(1997), critic Paul Pacult, the Robert Parker of spirits, gave Jägermeister three out of five stars and said its herbal quality “is so profound that it’s like walking into a Chinese herbalist’s shop.” He offered this summation: “a charming and quaffable shooter; but that’s about it.” Curiously, in Pacult’s 2008 second edition, Jägermeister is not even reviewed.

I’ve remained a fan of Jägermeister, though surely this has more to do with warm memories of college nights than with the flavor itself. These days, I rarely find myself in a situation that calls for shots of it. Which makes sense, since the prime demographic, according to Dietmar Franke, Jägermeister’s business development director for the United States, is drinkers aged twenty-one to thirty-one: “the age bracket when you are out every evening.”

Franke, as if out of central casting, looks like a benevolent version of the Burgermeister Meisterburger from the Claymation Christmas classic “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” You could totally picture this guy in lederhosen. He’d certainly slurped down a few Jägermeisters in his day. Franke thought it was hilarious that I wanted to know the secret ingredients. At one point, when I asked where the toilet was, he said, “If you find a secret in there, you’re welcome to publish it.”

“We are not an oversophisticated drink,” Franke said. “It’s an easy, uncomplicated product. Just make sure it’s ice-cold, and have a group of friends with you.” In case buyers are unclear about the ice-cold part, it says “Serve Cold—Keep on Ice” in big, bold letters right on the label. “The recipe has never been changed for the American palate. In this case, the American palate matches up just fine.”

Franke and I were sipping Jägermeister and tonics at the Jägermeister guesthouse, overlooking a clay tennis court, and, as usual, several members of the public relations department were with us. In this case, there were two young German women and one young American woman who’d come over from New York. Now, one might wonder, why all the public relations support for one slightly inebriated spirits writer? Well, I’d been told I was the very first journalist who would be allowed into Jägermeister’s vaunted secret herb room. In fact, before I secured permission, I had to fill out a multipart questionnaire requesting, among other thing my “positions on the spirits industry.” It seemed a somehow appropriately German interrogation.

Here are some things I learned during my tour. Jägermeister is produced by macerating, rather than distilling, its ingredients of herbs, spices, roots, and fruits in pure, neutral spirits, then aging for a year in huge ten-thousand-liter oak barrels. Jägermeister spends more than $500,000 on barrels every year. Liquid sugar, 135 grams per bottle, is added to the macerate late in the process. Meaning that even though Jägermeister is often referred to as a bitter, it is actually a liqueur because of its high sugar content. This sugar, I think, is a key part of Jägermeister’s particular appeal in the States; without its sweetness, there would likely be way too much licorice and herbs for the American palate.

All of those facts were fine and dandy—and wandering among the huge barrels was pretty cool. But what I really came for was a visit to the herb room. I was hoping it would shed some light on the fifty-six-ingredient secret recipe. As we entered the building, I could smell a huge number of aromas, and then we stepped inside the room. For all the buildup in my head, the room very much resembled other sterile labs where people in white coats develop secret flavors. The main item of interest in the herb room was a huge display of fifty-six samples of secret herbs and spices, each labeled with its name. Right away, like a good journalist, I whipped out my notebook and began copying down the list. As I did, I could tell that the German public relations people were becoming agitated, and one disappeared from the room. “They’re getting nervous,” said the American PR woman. “You’re causing problems.” The German PR person sternly handed me a sheet of paper listing the five herbs that are “officially” disclosed: cloves, ginger, chamomile flowers, cinnamon bark, and saffron.

Well, I’m not usually one to stick to “official” lists, and so—much to the certain dismay of my German handlers—I will tell you that there is also licorice root, lavender, rose hips, hyssop, mace, turmeric, cardamom, coriander, star anise, clove, lemon, and orange, as well as many of the herbs and spices usually found in bitters. Of course, just knowing those ingredients, but not the amount and preparation of them, doesn’t make it likely that you or I can recreate Jägermeister in our kitchens at home.

It was in the herb room that I learned definitively, sadly, that the rumors of deer’s blood and opiates are completely unfounded. Telling you this, dear drinker, somehow feels like telling you that Santa Claus does not exist. It felt as though a small part of my youth shriveled up and died. Alas, we soldier on.

Jägermeister was developed in 1934 and for most of its history in Germany, it was an after-dinner digestif. It was a drink enjoyed by middle-aged men who might have worked in the Playmobil or Volkswagen factories, after their meal of pilsner and pork knuckle. I’m fascinated by how Americans have turned that tradition on its head by making it a shooter.

You can thank Sidney Frank for that. Frank is the spirits industry legend best known for convincing Americans to spend thirty dollars on a superpremium vodka made in France. That vodka (Grey Goose—you may have heard of it) was eventually sold to Bacardi for two billion dollars in 2004, only a year or so before Frank’s death at eighty-six. One of his last projects was actually an energy drink called Crunk!!!, in partnership with the rapper Lil Jon. Frank’s first big success, however, was acquiring the rights to import Jägermeister in the 1970s, and then building the brand throughout the 1980s. It was Frank who invented the idea of sending attractive, scantily clad young women into bars late at night to convince horny young men to drink shots of product. In a way, guys like Rob Cooper and Eric Seed are following in the footsteps of Sidney Frank—the key difference is they’re putting their marketing faith in bartenders in high-end cocktail bars and not women in hot pants (although the possibilities for demo girls for Crème Yvette boggle the mind).

By now, the idea of the Jägermeister shot is so ingrained in least two generations of American drinkers that the liqueur has pretty much lost any tie to Germany. Jägermeister could really be from anywhere. In fact, we’ve exported our way of drinking Jägermeister back to Germany, where you’ll see young Germans sucking down Jäger shots. I certainly did at a popular spot in Wolfenbüttel called Laguna Beach Club—a sort of beer garden in the landlocked town, where they’d trucked in sand and set up a volleyball court.