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OldWaldorf Bar Days
their product was never so good as the original brand. Some
thirty years or so before their expulsion, the Carthusian
monks had suffered a big loss in the destruction of their
brandy warehouses, wherein was stored what was said to
be the largest stock of old Napoleon brandy in existence.
Even before prohibition came, as much as twenty dollars
a bottle was paid in New York for Chartreuse dated 1869
or before. While the monks have kept their formula a secret,
analysts have named among the ingredients of Chartreuse:
balm leaves, orange peel, dried hyssop tops, peppermint,
wormwood, angelica seed and root, cinnamon, mace, cloves,
Tonka beans,
calamus aromaticus
and cardamom. Some of
the flavor, if not virtues of the product, however, was as–
cribed to certain herbs which were said to grow only in the
neighborhood of the Grande Chartreuse. There were three
varieties of Chartreuse-yellow, green, and white. Voltage,
43·
CREME DE CACAO-An extract of cocoa, made in France. .
Used as a cordial or liqueur.
CREME .DE CASSIS-A liqueur made in France of black
currants, whose voltage still causes headaches to some who
recall its potency.
CREME DE MENTHE-A distillation ofmint, or of brandy
flavored with mint. Usually gre.en in color, though there
was also a wnite variety. By those who could not pronounce
its name correctly, it was often called "green mint," or
"white mint,"
menthe
being the French word for " mint."
It was usually maµe in France. Voltage, 48.
CR:E.ME YVETTE-An extract of violets, used for flavoring
purposes; also drunk as a cordial or liqueur. Its perfume
often gave it preference over the common or garden refuge
of the drinking dissembler-a clove or peppermint lozenge
- before the commercial discovery of halitosis. Made in
New York.
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