I may have posted this one before, but who knows - I purge stuff after a month or so. A classic sour cocktail with around 100 years of history, the Last Word calls for green Chartreuse - a product first crafted by Carthusian monks over 180 years ago. With all that practice I'm fairly certain they now know what they're doing, but sadly its getting harder to obtain. Seems that during Coronarona-ding-dong, Chartreuse was "rediscovered", and its now scarce as hen's teeth. Regardless, its an interesting liqueur/apertif with anise under/overtones. Its a good and elegant addition to your bar stock for occasions when you want some finese. Sadly the monks can't be distracted from their regular duties to ramp up production, so replacement bottles are now fairly difficult to procure due to increased demand. More on that in a later installment... Base recipe [here.](https://www.esquire.com/food-drink/drinks/a27043278/the-last-word-cocktail-drink-recipe/) Ingredients 3/4 oz Gin (Hendricks) 3/4 oz Green Chartreuse (there are substitutes) 3/4 oz Maraschino liqueur (Luxardo) 3/4 oz fresh lime juice Lime wedge and/or cherry for garnish Instructions Add liquid ingredients to a cocktail shaker 2/3rds full of ice, shake vigorously, strain into a chilled coupe or cocktail glass, place garnish item(s) on a pick and add to the drink. @eggplant was a bad influence on me, so I punted the garnish this time. Well that and I had no more lime to use as a garnish, so yeah... This is an excellent sipper. It's not too boozy, not too sweet, has a good lime juice hit and has an herbal complexity that - if you close your eyes and imagine - takes you back to pastoral hillsides in provincial France rife with the aromas of 130 botanical ingredients. Or some such similar bullshit formative story anyway. Regardless, it is a good before dinner teaser to tempt your palette. I'd note that the Luxardo and Chartreuse are 90 proof, so this is fairly boozy too -  a good "one and done" cocktail. 4.6/5 Ducks - a crowd pleaser we enjoy a few times a year here at House of Duck. Highly recommended! ~~~~ This is Part I of III. I'll morph this cocktail one ingredient at a time into an interesting twist, and then finally a regional abomination - all in the name of science. Stay tuned.