Green Chartreuse vs. St Germain

 

"Hey?" You ask. "I have been closely following clerkmanifesto's journey to France. And I've put up with stories about Japan. I've endured complicated, deceptive, and curious photography. I've worked my way through exhausting tales of urban design, making a life in another country, and endless discussions of cheese and baguettes. And I have done this because I felt at some point, eventually, you surely must discuss the liqueur situation!"

"It has been excruciating!" You exclaim. "But surely my pet subject will arrive. Won't it?" You ask in agony and desperation.

Yes.

It has arrived.

Today we will discuss the two giants of French Liqueurs: Green Chartreuse and St Germain.

There are other French Liqueurs. And if you continue to look at my new paintings, read about my hate of the medieval village of Eze and how it's emblematic of everything wrong with modern France, endure the opening of gelato season here, and suffer the agonies of reading about why the stroad running along the Promenade Des Anglais is an actual affront to God, I will eventually get to more stories of French Liqueurs.

I am thinking of going all in on the French Liqueurs.

And the astonishing two navigational directions of French Liqueurs are Green Chartreuse and St Germain.

I adore Green Chartreuse. It is an elixir, a toxic confection of life, a mystery made by monks for three hundred years. From a secret recipe, using hundreds of herbs, they have created the masterpiece of liqueuers.

Do you know what Green Chartreuse tastes like? It's lingering at the edge of my throat now. But I can no more tell you the taste than you could describe the secret fourth primary color. 

So I hope you've tried it. 

It's very strong. Take a small sip.

Several years ago the monks who make Green Chartreuse announced that they were going to kind of chill out on the chartreuse. They didn't want to make more and more chartreuse and be a chartreuse global powerhouse. They wanted to be monks who made some chartreuse on the side.

Good for them.

I guess. What do I know?

But that was around the time where one stopped being able to pop into a liquor store and buy a bottle of Green Chartreuse for $55. It just wasn't available anymore.

And then we moved to France. And suddenly, many places had it for sale! That makes sense. It's French. We're in France. This is the kind of sensibility I enjoy! It still has an appealingly uneven distribution and the price varies from maybe 55 euros, if you are very lucky, clear up to 85 euros and more.

I have a bottle.

It tastes worth it.

Come on by.

On the other hand we have St Germain. This is a gorgeous liqueur. It tastes of elderflowers picked in the mountains. It is simpler and lighter and very beautiful. It comes in a graceful, heavy art nouveau bottle. It looks like a classic drink that must have been around for a hundred years, but it is astonishingly less that twenty years old! It's impact was so great on the nascent world cocktail culture reemergence that it became known as "Bartenders' Ketchup" because it is so handy and good and goes so well with so many kinds of mixed drinks. Though I love the Aperol Spritz, a classic, the best spritz to me is the Hugo Spritz, made with St Germain, Prosecco, sparkling water, and mint, if you've got it. Sadly, St Germain was sold to an evil greedy giant Liquor corporation who ran the price up as much as they could and positioned it as a "Global Luxury" brand.

When I came here to France I thought excitedly: "Oh, how exciting! I'll be able to get nice cheap St Germain." Ha. Ha!!! When I saw that somehow it cost as much a 40 euros a bottle I researched the situation and learned all of this.

And I tried to hate St Germain.

Alas, I failed.

The two key liqueurs of France, one pure and noble, magnificent and spiritual. One corrupted and...

delicious.

And there you are.

We will all complain eventually

 

I have had a lovely couple of days here in my Belle Epoque city. The sun came out and the temperature has been in the mid sixties. It is asparkle with brilliance! Yesterday in the early evening we went to a  restaurant sprawling along a charming and completely pedestrianized street, where, from the chairs at our table, we sized up the comfortable looking linen clothes displayed in front of the store a few unobstructed steps from our table. Between those clothes and us, life's rich pageant promenaded along providing an endless entertainment.  

People really aren't so bad when they are, um, walking. 

At this restaurant/cafe, we had a coffee and a St. Germain Spritz. The spritz came with a rather generous plate of what seemed to be pan fried pita that was quite nice, and a small bowl of pretty good olives!

We spent an hour there. The bill was 9.50. Happy hour. C'est normal.

Today we wandered the breadth of our city. My wife had a couple things she was shopping for, but there was no urgency. I took some aimless pictures while she was in the stores. We ventured twice to the beach, alive with an almost summery quality for the first time since we've lived here, people in bathing suits and something verging on crowds. I'm not sure about that in a foreboding kind of way. We covered the ancient town fully, stopping for coffee at The Claque, which was almost as good as the first time we were there. We stopped for a really good street musician who caught our attention by nostalgically playing "Purple Rain".

Aw.

We spent 34 years in Minnesota.

How did he know?

Then he played "With or Without You" very nicely and mournfully. He accompanied himself on the guitar but did not augment with recordings or "karaoke" style backing, which we always deeply appreciate. We tossed money in his case and went our way while he played an equally good third song maybe by Radiohead. He didn't acknowledge the money, which isn't best form, but maybe he was really into the singing? And, after all, it's not like he was begging.

Last stretch home along the gambetta we investigated a really nicely laid out vegetable stand for possible future use. We picked up a package waiting for us at a randomly assigned store. And we got gelato from my, so far, second favorite gelateria. The banana and mango ones were as much fruit as gelato, but with a perfectly blurred line. The white chocolate gelato went very nicely with the banana and was a lot of fun.

I wanted to tell you all of this to set the stage for some complaining about this city.

But let's just enjoy ourselves and leave that for another time...

On the proximity of happiness and sadness

 

In the evening we had a drink at a favorite cafe of ours, on a street for only people to use, and where they stream by, to and from the beach. We sat side by side, facing the world and commenting on it together until one of us got cold enough for us to carry on in our evening in the city. I had a limoncello spritz, which is an odd spritz variation I had not tried. It was not bad, though I never love lemoncello as much as I think I would. But it was a very strong drink, and as we wandered away from the cafe to look for chocolate mousse I was almost drunk and a little happy.

I have not found the last month very easy. This is for a variety of reasons I mostly haven't gotten into here yet. Some I may not get into at all. But as I walked away from that cafe, I thought:

Happiness is best when it's close to sadness.

Sadness too is best when it's close to happiness, but only because it is less sad.

Champagne every day

 

I know what you're thinking:

"I bet he drinks champagne every day!"

So true.

Oh, you want to know the truth?

Okay, but remember, you asked for this.

Or I pretended you asked for it.

Whatever.

The truth is: 

In France they keep all the sparkling wines behind the counter!

Like, it's too valuable and wonderful to trust the public with.

And champagne is tres cher.

Very expensive!

Ooh la la.

People say "Ooh la la" all the time here!

You wanted the truth.

And the truth is that the cheapest champagne starts at at least 20 euros. So I rarely drink it. But I do drink all kinds of proseccos and sparkling Rose's and so on. Some of these can get pretty cheap, and probably fairly disgusting, but they still keep them behind the counter!

Ninety euro bottle of bordeaux? Help yourself off the shelf Monsieur. Seven euro bottle of Cremant?

Oh no!

Ooh la la! We are afraid you will lose control!

And I might!

I drink a lot of sparking wines. And if they're not quite doing it for me?

I just add ice, aperol, and sparkling water, the humble Italian delight: An Aperol Spritz.

Thank god Italy is always just around the corner here, ready to bail us out.

Monaco

We woke up yesterday morning and decided to go to Monaco. So we walked through the city for a few minutes and took the train and in about 20 minutes we were in Monaco.

What?

Yes, an 800 year old city-state is about 15 miles from here.

Which is handy if you quickly need a city-state.

Which we did, largely because their Christmas Market has a teddy bear theme. We are very pro teddy bear!  And let me tell you (which I guess is what you're doing by reading clerkmanifesto), Monaco did not let down the teddy bear lovers of the world. 

 

I don't much do the more documentary style of photography because I rarely know what I'll be writing about and have limited photo taking windows, but I do a little regret I didn't get more pictures like this, because I could have had hundreds! In between the food stands and shops and amusement park rides of the Monaco Christmas Market, they had little buildings one could look in and see full sized animated teddy bear scenes! Teddy bears baking in the patisserie, teddy bears lolling about in the library (with real books. I saw a nice old Gerald Durrell in there!), teddy bears getting ready to open all their presents. Not to mention teddy bear rides, teddy bears sitting in giant Christmas wreaths, and teddy bears up on all the buildings. It was darling.

Also, and there is always the risk of alienating my audience here with too many too glorious to be true tales (I think is why the Peter Mayles of the world complain so much, to level things out), but I must mention the vin chaud.

The vin chaud. Oh the vin chaud.

I like a vin chaud. And in the days of yore, when I celebrated the christmas markets of Minnesota, as I passed by everything else, I often managed to get a cup of vin chaud. It was good, expensive, but good. And having a nice souvenir mug of spiced hot wine in a warming tent is a good time if one can manage it. But in Monaco, among the teddy bears, the billion dollar yachts, and the old city up above on the clifftop, the vin chaud was unbelievable.

First, I'd like to point out that it came in flavors because, why not, there's more than one way to cook a wine. We had a glass of the traditional and one of the daily special. One was more ginger based, one more lemony. The vin chaud also came in sizes and was not very expensive. Our cups of normal sized vin chaud made us drunk! The large size would have left us drooling on the cobblestones. Is this a good thing?

I believe in choice.

It was the best Christmas Market ever! And I could tell you more about Monaco, The slightly odd quality of the street life, the sheer amount of Winter construction work going on, and our climb up to the beautiful old city, but, why bother. 

I think we've covered the important things here.

The mattress factory

 

In an old working area of Saint Minneapolis, by the train tracks, an old mattress factory was converted into a kind of small industrial area wonderland. It is now full of glossy hip start-up companies, a really nice coffee place in an enormous space, large outdoor seating areas, and a perfectly serviceable brewery. The whole thing is watched over by an old water tower of surpassing charms. My darling wife and I love to get tea/coffee/beer there and drink them at one of the outdoor tables if the weather is remotely agreeable.

The brewery is called Lake Monster Brewing, which naturally led me to these pictures:

But wait!

Now that you are developing an affection for octopi on the loose, you are wondering: Where else can I see enormous octopi on the loose in Saint Minneapolis?

Good question.

I have your back!

At the best neighborhood restaurant in the area, Okome has, on occasion, a massive octopus sprawling across its dining room and wandering through the kitchens. And I, luckily, was able to get a few pictures of it for you!

No need to thank me.

No one ever needs to thank me here.

Bob Dylan's opinion of Complete Unknown

 

Some of you, knowing about my personal relationship wherein I go drinking with Bob Dylan, were perhaps disappointed that I covered my seeing the movie Complete Unknown in this space yesterday with no reference to what Bob thought of it. So I called Bob.

I don't normally call Bob.

Bob does not normally answer.

But expect the unexpected with Bob.

Except not too much of the unexpected, and once you work out the pattern, barely any at all.

Nevertheless, there was Bob.

"Hi Bob. I saw it!" I said.

"You saw what?"  He asked.

"Your movie."

"Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid?" He asked.

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is a movie he had a small part in in the early seventies. I ignored him. He knew what I was talking about. 

"I thought it was hilarious. Finally, they had the sense to make a comedy about you."

"A comedy?" He replied. I could tell he was thinking this interpretation over and kind of liking it.

"What did you think of it?" I asked, coming to the alleged heart of the matter.

There was a long silence.

"I think we should go out drinking sake the next time I'm in town." Bob said apropos of nothing.

"So you thought it was fairly accurate." I interpreted.

"I guess so." He said in an offhand way that sounded weirdly like Timothee Chalomet.

Then we talked of more important things.

Just kidding.

We made brief plans and hung up.

Dan Dan Dan

I'll admit this might not be the most appropriate video project, nor one for me to have taken so seriously. But my co-worker Dan is something of a bizarre muse to me, amusing in stories, funny in a series of "Mini Dans in the library" pictures where he is so tiny he can hold up towering books like a human bookend, and now he is appealingly reproducible in AI video with his distinctive features and expressive... qualities. So the lark of putting him drunk in alleys with dinosaurs just sort of ran away with itself, leaving me with something approaching a two minute movie. Yes, twenty seconds might have been a more appropriate length for all of this, but there's simply so much irresistible Dan in this movie! Well, irresistible to me, and it even has the suggestion of a storyline! Although as to that, you'll have to supply a fair portion of it for yourself. 

I wrote a whole thing here about how to watch this now on clerkmanifesto and then found my video is simply too fat to show here, so we're back to directing you to YouTube, for today at least. Click on the picture to watch the (possibly painfully long- depends on how much of a Dan fan you are) video. 

It has meticulously crafted (only sort of fake) music, so turn up your stereo system.

Celebrity supporters

During a recent night of poker with some of my friends, many of whom are dead, we drank a lot of Calvados, which I blame Bob Dylan for, as he brought way too many interesting bottles of the stuff.

 The drunkeness that ensued surely accounts for how we got involved in a Clerkmanifesto promotional photoshoot. Well, probably the alcohol and how they all felt sorry for me as Clerkmanifesto hasn't had the kind of popular success the rest of them gathered. It was all a bit embarassing, but kind of them, and I like the pictures.

I think I won some money playing poker, but the coins are all outdated and weird.

 

Ancient wisdom with Bob Dylan at the VFW

 

I was out having drinks with Bob Dylan at the VFW. Another guy was with us, but he spent the whole time quietly reading a blog on his phone. At one point later in the evening I said to Bob "I'm reading a book made up entirely of the accounts of people talking about what it's like to work with you."

Bob's head was over his whiskey and ginger and he didn't lift it up. He just eyed me sideways. He looked old and fey. Very old and very fey. "Why?" He croaked.

I took a sip of my whiskey and ginger, only to find it empty. "It's like that old Zen story where a bunch of blind men describe an elephant."

He gave me a slightly fuller look, no less fey, regarding me for a moment.

"Are you distant and aloof?" I explained. "Are you spontaneous and inspirational? Are you cold and selfish? Are you considerate and thoughtful? Are you wearied and cloistered? Are you whimsical and collaborative? Are you a tyrant? Are you a master?"

Bob said nothing.

"Maybe the secret of the story is that even if all the blind men could see perfectly, how could anyone ever describe an elephant?"

We were quiet for awhile. Then from out of nowhere Bob convincingly imitated the trumpeting of an elephant. 

The guy reading the blog, Neil, looked up a little crossly at us for a second. Then looked back down at his phone.

Bob and I burst into a fit of giggles.

Then we stopped ordering drinks and ordered some food instead.

Drinkin' 'n' Readin'

 

I have never particularly associated drinking with reading. Is it more fun to read while having cocktails? Well, yes, but I like most things better while having cocktails. Five or ten years ago there was a mild fad for book group meetings in pubs, and maybe even a couple of incidences of after-hours library beer-drinking book events, but none of that lasted long. And beyond that paltry bit, there is no great connection I can find between alcohol and reading.

Nevertheless, for decades, I have been on the receiving end of book donations. I have probably taken part in the receiving of thousands of boxes of books over the years. And while there are several interesting through-lines in those donations, the one that most regularly grabs my attention is this:

Half of every box used for donations of books is a liquor box. Cheap wine, cases of vodka, gummy liqueurs, and plenty of whiskey; people with books apparently drink like fishes! 

But it's not like any library patrons, who tell me plenty of stuff, ever come in and say "I drank a bottle of wine last night and read Crime and Punishment, and it was fantastic!"

They also never seem particularly drunk.

Or maybe everybody always seems a little drunk, so I can't tell.

Cocktails

 

Yes, yes, yes. It's all party party party around here right now.

And I love a cocktail.

I have probably always loved cocktails, but they didn't have them when I was younger. Not really. One was just supposed to drink distilled spirits, and generic, commercial beer. There was wine though. A person could drink good wine if interested.

The closest thing to the modern cocktail we had in, say, the ending decades of the 20th Century, outside of a few drops of dry vermouth in one's gin, was maybe the Tiki Bar. These were cute bars where one could get violently colored (and tasting) drinks made from the cheapest rums, liqueurs, and canned juices. 

So not very close. 

The contrast with the modern is extraordinary. The places I have been going out to this past weekend have amazing cocktails with astonishing ingredients. I have a reasonably good knowledge of liqueurs, historical drinks, and unusual alcohols, but I am regularly thrown for a loop in any ingredient list on these cocktail menus. And the adventure in taste can be greater than with any of the food, as good as that sometimes is.

I love a cocktail. And I am curiously full of trust when it comes to these. I find when ordering one I have become less inclined to choose what I like, and more inclined to choose based on pure bewilderment. Here is a list of some of the evocative cocktail components on the drinks menus of where I have been this last weekend:

Brown butter wash

Tattersall bitter orange

Banane du Bresil

Rainwater and Malmsey Madeira

Tarragon boozy simple saline

cherry smoked velvet falernum

bell pepper

oscar quevedo flowers

Carpano antica

Bonanto

Well, it goes on. And how does it taste?

I'm actually not sure...

And now, as my favorite cocktail youtuber says, to the bar!