An ancient manuscript inscribed with a recipe for an elixir of long life is delivered to the gates of a monastery in the French Alps. One hundred years later the Carthusian monks capture the world market with the release of Chartreuse liquers.

Behind the forbidding walls of the ancient La Grande Chartreuse monastery in the French Alps, the Carthusian Monks remain entirely isolated from the outside world, veiled by the silence of their vows. Every three days, while their brothers continue their contemplative lives, three monks leave their prayer cells dressed in white shepherds' robes and file along the polished corridors to the herb room. These three are the sole guardians of a centuries-old secret, an alchemist's recipe for a mediaeval elixir which the Carthusians have transformed into their famous liqueurs, the yellow and green Chartreuse, the oldest of the world's liqueurs.

Only the distillers have ever been allowed to enter the herb room where they blend the 130 herbs essential to the base formula. When they order the various plants and flowers from local suppliers, the invoices are sent directly to the monastery. Not even Jean-Marc Roget, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Chartreuse Diffusion, the company which handles the finances and distribution of the products, knows the ingredients which he pays for at the end of each month.