Monastical liqueurs are worthy of a paragraph to themselves. So long as monks have existed, they seem to have manifested a taste for the concoction of these drinks. We can scarcely pass the shop window of a liqueur-seller without having our attention attracted by what the French call a Kyrielle or litany of flasks of diverse forms, decorated with tickets bearing such titles as the following:—Liqueur des Chartreux, Liqueur des Benedictins, Liqueur des Carmes, Liqueur des Trappistes, Liqueur des Pères de Garaison, Liqueur du P. Kermann, and so on. A large volume might well be composed on these liqueurs alone. About their supposed virtues,—aperient, digestive, antiapoplectic, antispasmodic, anticholeric, tonic, etc., that book might be well supposed likely to stretch out as far as the list of Banquo’s issue to the diseased imagination of Macbeth.
The search for the philosopher’s stone and the powder of projection was by no means wholly fruitless. It strengthened the hands of chemistry. It was also the cradle of liqueurs. In the early part of the middle ages the learned inhabitants of the convents devoted their leisure time, of which they appear to have had no lack, to the so-called magnum opus. The magnum opus, the quintessence, the elixir of long life, were three different denominations of one and the same thing. Monkish intellectual toil was chiefly connected at that time with the study of essences, spirits, alcohols, and distillations. The plants which they sought with the greatest eagerness were rosemary, arnica, elder, camomile, sweet trefoil, rose, borage, balm mint, snake weed, iris, etc.
In the thirteenth century, Arnold de Villeneuve, a celebrated physician, possessed with this devil of a magnum opus, formulated the question of the quintessence or elixir of long life in these terms, which became afterwards a dogma for all his monastic successors. “This is the secret, viz., to find substances so homogeneous to our nature that they can increase it without inflaming it, continue it without diminishing it ... as our life continually loses somewhat, until at last all is lost.” The outcome of the long and patient labours of the monkish alchemists was certain elixirs and liqueurs, of which the secret composition was transmitted from generation to generation in convents and monasteries. Such liqueurs were in their origin simply a pharmaceutic product. It is only within the last few years comparatively that they have been converted into delicacies after dinner. Our age bears the hall mark of positivism. The monks labour no longer for the sole glory of God and comfort of the sick. Their object at the present day is to effect, it is affirmed, a ready and productive sale. It may be so; happily it is not our business to determine. It is certain that a vast development has taken place in the manufacture of the majority of the monkish liqueurs. The Chartreux of L’Isère now realize annual benefices of considerable value, of which a portion is said to be contributed to the continually diminishing Papal exchequer, under the title of Peter’s pence. Of this medicinal liqueur the active and benevolent element is gathered from herbs scattered on the Alpine mountains cold, or on the slopes of the Pyrenees, or in the sombre forests of the north (see the Prospectus), or in the shops of the apothecaries. But they all assuredly depend upon cognac for their element of life. Benedictine, with its four cabalistic letters, A M D G,[73] is made by the monks of Fécamp, at the famous Carthusian monastery of La Grande Chartreuse, near Grenoble. The elixir of long life, de Sept-Fonds, is made in a convent of the Trappists of l’Allier, and Trappistine is the work of the good fathers of the abbey of La Grâce-Dieu (Doubs). It is, however, affirmed that only Chartreuse, coloured yellow or green at will, and Trappistine, are the works of religious hands, while all other liqueurs are made by the laics. The methods of fabrication employed in the convents are now well known.[74] Benedictine is the only liqueur which has escaped analysis.
Absinthe is not strictly a liqueur. It substitutes bitter for sweet. This strong spirituous liquor, so prejudicial to French health and morality, is, however, commonly called a liqueur. Its base is an alcoholate, composed of anise, coriander, and fennel. It is flavoured with wormwood, a species of artemisia, and other plants containing absinthin. It is said to be commonly coloured with indigo and sulphate of copper. It is prepared chiefly in Switzerland, but much of it is made at Bordeaux.
Arnold de Villeneuve, in his medical treatise, written in Latin, On the preservation of youth and the retardation of age, has a sermon upon Golden water. “I have not,” he says, “read the properties of this water in books of distinguished authority, but it is to be presumed that, if it exists, it is so sublime a work that they have concealed the method of its preparation, and have even refused to mention its name. Of gold, however, they have spoken, and set it among cordial medicines. They have praised it for the comforting of the heart and for the palliation of leprosy. It is possible that since we every day find things diversified by alteration of substance, acquiring the operations of those other things into which they have been transformed, so out of wine may be made a water of life very different from wine both in colour and in substance, in effect and in operation. And the doubt here is, not about the fact, but how it is brought about. That the bodies of all metals may be reduced into water by the ingenuity of mankind, experience allows us not to question; but the operation and nature of those things by which this end is obtained it is no easy matter to discover.”
This golden water was originally nothing else than eau de vie in which had been macerated certain herbs and aromatic spices to give it taste and colour; afterwards minute portions of metallic gold were added. The ingredients mentioned by Arnold de Villeneuve are rosemary flowers, from which, he says, the water obtains its golden colour, cinnamon, grains of paradise, cloves, cubebs, liquorice, and the like.
In the mind of the middle ages, gold was held to be a remedy for every ill. Many people applied themselves to the task of dissolving this metal and rendering it potable. It was put into drinks, baths, victuals, pills, and the pharmacopeia of the time abounds in elixirs of gold, tinctures of gold, drops of gold, and so on. To please the public eye, those pieces of the precious metal were cast into the composition which we now know as Eau de vie de Dantzig.
Catherine de Medicis brought into France all the voluptuous discoveries and superfluities of Italy, and helped to augment considerably the number of new liqueurs and to popularize their usage. Henry II. was especially fond of the anisette of Marie Brizard of Bordeaux. Sully, in 1604, examining the objects of luxury in France, found Populo and Rossolio to have the chief share in the public estimation and expenditure. Of them Populo is mentioned in the Letters of Gui-Patin.[75] It was composed of spirits of wine, water, sugar, musk, amber, essence of anise, and essence of cinnamon.
Rossolis, our Rossolio, or Rossoli, said to be derived, in consequence of its extreme excellence, from the dew of the sun, ros solis, was made of burnt brandy, sugar, and the juice of sweet fruits, such as cherries or mulberries. Louis XIV. was much attached to this particular liqueur. That prepared for him was said to differ a little from the ordinary compound. A receipt is given of the king’s drink.
Equal quantities of eau de vie and Spanish wine, in which were infused anise, coriander, fennel, citron, angelica, and sugar-candy dissolved in camomile water, and boiled to a thick syrup, were a distinctive feature in this royal liqueur.