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THE DRINK: The Last Word
1 part green Chartreuse
1 part Maraschino Luxardo
1 part gin
1 part fresh lime
Shake well and strain. Don't say a word. Just drink.

The Carthusian monks, who lived in the shadow of the French Alps, were noted for their vows of silence. They were also famous for producing a sweet herbal tincture we know today as Chartreuse. These days, oddly enough, the chlorophyll-tinged tipple is provoking much discussion as bartenders race to rediscover the next great cocktail. Behold the Last Word, a Prohibition-era cocktail named for an obscure vaudevillian. Laced with Chartreuse and Maraschino, it's a relic of a bygone era. Some say the Zig Zag Café in Seattle unearthed it first; others point to the Pegu Club in New York, which substitutes rye for gin and lemon for lime. Most agree the recipe was almost certainly exhumed from the pages of Ted Saucier's classic 1951 bar manual, Bottom's Up, an out-of-print tome that induces bidding wars whenever it pops up on eBay. In the end, you need only know that it's damn tasty, a perfect balance of sweet and sour, with enough kick to have you speaking in tongues.