To Get Through the Election, Drink Chartreuse
A bitter election calls for a cocktail—and a lesson in the lunacy of price controls.
The presidential race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris is bitter, strange, and, especially if you're a libertarian, more than a little bit depressing.
On the one hand, much of the back and forth between the two candidates has been vapid: Harris has flip-flopped on numerous positions, and resisted detailing many of her proposals. Trump, meanwhile, continues to brainfart ideas into the ether, with varying degrees of seriousness. Defenders of both candidates have argued, at times, that you don't have to worry about their terrible ideas because they probably wouldn't be implemented. The specifics of how either would actually govern remains something of a mystery.
On the other hand, whenever this election has touched on the issues, the two camps seem to be converging on a new policy consensus, a set of neo-populist, neo-mercantilist ideas and agenda items. There is much that separates Trump and Harris, but they and their parties are both skeptical of global trade and immigration and intent on using government muscle to prop up (or tear down) industry. And they have both flirted with policies that sound a lot like price controls, of the sort that could wreck industries–or at least cause serious headaches for consumers.
On any given day, in other words, the race swings between no ideas and terrible ideas. It's enough to drive a person to drink: If you're going to end up with a headache, you may as well enjoy the prior evening.
Looking for something to imbibe? Let me recommend a thematically appropriate sip of Green Chartreuse, a high-proof, semi-sweet, herbal liqueur based on a secret recipe and produced by capitalist booze monks in France.
Like this election, it's bitter, mysterious, and more than a little bit weird. Unlike this election, it's a strange delight, whether sipped on its own or included in a mixed drink.
And it might prepare you for what comes after either Trump or Harris wins the presidency, since finding a bottle means navigating high prices, top-down government controls, and frustrating supply shortages.
The Chartreuse shortage is an outgrowth of a decision on the part of the Carthusian monks who produce it to scale back production in order to focus more on their religious duties. You can't blame them, really: It's their product and their lives. They don't owe their labor to anyone.
And besides, it's not as if they are stopping production entirely. It's just that they aren't going to continually scale up to meet the increasing demand they've seen as classic cocktails that make use of Chartreuse have become more popular.
What happens when there's high demand for a product but not enough supply to meet it? Normally, those supply/demand mismatches are resolved via higher prices, which serve as signals of a product's value and scarcity. Chartreuse shouldn't disappear from bars and liquor store shelves, but it might be a little bit more expensive.
Depending on where you live, that may be what happened. In states that don't control the price of liquor, Chartreuse prices shot up after news broke of the monks' decision to limit production. Even beforehand, Chartreuse was already somewhat pricey, typically costing about $60 a bottle. But when it became clear that supplies would be limited, prices shot up—in some cases to well over $100.
More recently, however, prices have cooled, at least in some stores. If you live in a state where liquor stores set their own prices, you can probably find a bottle for around $80, and maybe less. I recently purchased two from a well-stocked store just a few miles north of Boston, Massachusetts, for $75 each. It's a little more expensive than it used to be, and perhaps a little bit harder to find. But that's the price we pay for monks who want to pray.
The story is different, however, if you live in a state where liquor is distributed by a single state-run entity and retail prices are strictly enforced. In those so-called "control states," you won't find bottles of Chartreuse going for $100. But you might not find them at all. That's because state-run distribution schemes and mandated retail prices have made acquiring a bottle a truly maddening task.
What those control states have said, essentially, is that if you want to pay more for Chartreuse, you're not allowed to. You can scour state-run inventories online and rush off to stock up the moment a bottle appears. Or you might chance upon a bottle by happenstance, or by having a friend who works at the store. But the price signal that provides the market with information that balances demand with supply has been eliminated.
Indeed, Chartreuse has become so difficult to find in some places that cocktail enthusiasts have turned to alternatives, like Genepy and Strega, to replace the monk-made green spirit. These aren't bad bottles of liquor, but they lack the specific character of Chartreuse, the earthy, herbal complexity and alcoholic intensity that makes Chartreuse such a unique and valuable element in mixed drinks.
This doesn't just affect home cocktail connoisseurs buying bottles to stock home bars. In 2023, I went to a small, quiet bar in Raleigh, North Carolina, and spoke to a bartender who said that some bars had been forced to take Chartreuse drinks off their menus because the state's allocations had made it impossible to secure a reliable supply.
Price controls, in other words, are making cocktails worse. There's a lesson here for both Harris and Trump, about the futility of top-down mandates and the consumer-unfriendly frustrations of central planning–not that I expect either of them to learn it.
So we'll give the liquor itself the last word, literally, with the most famous Chartreuse cocktail—a beguiling yet easy-to-make equal-parts mix known as The Last Word.
The Last Word
- ¾ ounce green Chartreuse
- ¾ ounce Luxardo maraschino liqueur
- ¾ ounce fresh-squeezed lime juice
- ¾ ounce gin
Shake all ingredients over ice, then strain into a coupe glass.
For an earthier, stranger version, try replacing the gin with mezcal, an agave spirit from Mexico that you can think of as tequila's smoky cousin.
Either way, you'll be enjoying a drink built on the bounty of international trade and cross-border culinary combinations. The Last Word is a break from the news, and a delicious liquid riposte to the dismal and depressing consensus of this presidential election.
