The ‘elixir of long life’: how the elusive Chartreuse quietly became the trendiest drink around

Morwenna Ferrier with a bottle of green Chartreuse at the wine cellar La Cave de Belleville in Paris. Photograph: Magali Deporte/The Guardian

It’s just after 9pm in drizzly Belleville, Paris. Too late for cocktails, too early for bedtime, but up the steep hill that straddles the 19th and 20th arrondissements, digestif hour is in sight.

In the past few years, more and more Parisians have been reaching for a glass of Chartreuse, an intensely green/yellow herbal liqueur with a folkloric backstory involving Carthusian monks, cholera and a recipe of omertà-like secrecy.