The same night as my recent encounter with foie gras, I was introduced to Chartreuse.
If you have yet to be introduced, allow me. Chartreuse is a liqueur made by Carthusian monks at the Grande Chartreuse monastery in Voiron, France. Since 1605 it has been distilled using a secret formulation of 130 herbs, flowers, and extracts, and the recipe has been protected by the order through political turmoil, property confiscations (two) and religious persecution. They’ve managed to cling to the prized formula, so the story goes, by never writing it down but instead entrusting it to the memories of three monks.
Not only is three a nice Trinitarian number, it also provides for redundancy if, say, one of the three monks steps outside the door of the monastery and gets hit unexpectedly by a bus packed with German tourists or slips on wet tile at the top of the stairs and… you get the picture.
After hearing the story of the liqueur, it took only seconds (I’d estimate the number at three) for me to begin to construct the plot of a great murder mystery. I began to devise simultaneous means of demise for all three keepers of ‘treuse or outline ways that they could be eliminated in such quick succession that the formula would be lost or could be stolen under duress.
Still, before I spill the beans, I’d be curious how you might imagine the three monks entrusted with the formula might come to meet their Maker. Anyone?
