Status Operational
Established: 1764
Owner: Privately owned
Capacity: Not supplied
Visitor Policy: Visitors welcome throughout the year
Tel: +33 4 76 05 90 34
Website: http://www.chartreuse.fr/

Chartreuse’s recipe is far more closely guarded than the Coca Cola formula – not surprisingly, when you consider it originated as an elixir of life (or at least youth). In the 16th century many alchemists were engaged in the search for an elixir – and in 1605 Marshall d’Estrees, a friend of King Henry IV of France, gave a recipe to the Carthusian monks. The manuscript was hand-written and signed by Estrees, so it is assumed he was the original creator of the Elixir, a fact apparently supported by his living to the age of 97. But the recipe lay untouched in a monastery near Paris for 132 years before it was eventually taken to the Monastery of Grand Chartreuse where Brother Jerôme Maubec, a master apothecary, worked to perfect the elixir.

1271 Rte de Berland
Entre-Deux-Guiers
38380
France