Ken Oringer - Green is Good

If you’ve ever eaten at any one of Ken Oringer’s restaurants (Clio, Coppa, Toro, La Verdad, KO Prime), you know that he thinks a little differently than the rest of us. So it would make sense that when he looks for an after dinner drink, he’s not reaching for any regular old digestif. This holiday season, Oringer wants a bottle of Chartreuse Elixir, a French liqueur made from over 150 herbs and spices by a small handful of monks. In fact, this bottle of the green stuff is so exclusive that there are currently only two living monks who have the recipe. While this powerful and aromatic drink can be enjoyed in a snifter, Oringer would also like to see sugar cubes and a vintage spoon packaged with that bottle to aid in the enjoyment – “it’s like a 150-proof cough syrup that you drink like absinthe – with a spoon and sugar cube,” he says. This particular brand of green-tinged tipple is available for purchase through Dean & Deluca for $184. Due to Massachusetts liquor laws, you can’t have it shipped but you can always take a quick jaunt down to NYC to procure yourself, or the adventurous imbiber in your life, a bottle.