Tag Archives: Chartreuse

There’s something to fire. Something beyond the obvious needs for warmth, internal combustion, and razing medieval towns. Playing around with it is at least moderately pleasurable on its own accord, so you can imagine how we at Swigs would view the combination of playing with fire and consumable liqueurs.

Obviously, the use of heat to change the properties of our food is a key principle of cooking, and I’d always wondered how it might be applied to my drinks beyond the token flaming orange peel at a trendy cocktail bar. As it turns out, bartending guru Jamie Boudreau had adequately demonstrated the concept already through a drink he created called the Rubicon.

The Rubicon

• 2oz dry gin
• .5 oz maraschino liqueur
• .5 oz lemon juice
• .25 oz green chartreuse
• a few sprigs of rosemary
• Pour the chartreuse into a rocks glass and curl a sprig of rosemary around the bottom of the glass. Then light the chartreuse on fire. Fixate on the awesomeness.
• Mix together the remaining booze in a shaker, shake with ice and a sprig of rosemary, and double strain into the glass, eliminating any stray bits of herbs and extinguishing the flame.
• Add crushed ice until the glass is full; add a final sprig of rosemary as a garnish

It’s astonishing the degree to which the flame changes the flavors. The herbal qualities of the chartreuse and the rosemary remain, but they’re made more robust and meatier by the fire. The drink feels more masculine, not just because it’s crafted from every caveman’s favorite exothermic reaction but because the sweeter elements are muted and rounded off nicely.

Crossing the Rubicon is, of course, a classic cultural idiom that refers to the notion of passing the point of no return. Here’s a summary of the phrase’s history in Boudreau’s own words:

The rosemary curled in the glass reminded me of Caesar’s laurels and therefore I’ve named this libation after the famous river Caesar crossed in 49 BC after uttering the now famous words: ‘Let us go where the omens of the Gods and the crimes of our enemies summon us! THE DIE IS NOW CAST!’ It is with this action that the Roman Empire began, and western civilization as we know it.

Perhaps an unintended secondary meaning of the phrase and of the drink in this case is the fire itself. Once you know what fire can do to your food, once you know it what it can do to your chartreause, how can you not want to play with it just a little more?