I loved Chartreuse in my early 20’s. I still have an empty 1Lt bottle of the VEP “Yellow” Chartreuse with the accompanying box on my bookshelf (someone stole the last ounce of my “Green” VEP, along with the packaging).
Having said all of this, I am attaching a couple of links related to this incredible beverage:
• From Mr Harvey W. Wiley’s
Beverages And Their Adulteration Origin, Composition, Manufacture, Natural, Artificial, Fermented, Distilled, Alkaloidal And Fruit Juices:
• In a recent Wine & Spirits magazine article, the method of determining the actual bottling date of Chartreuse is shared:
“In fact, there’s a way to date Chartreuse bottlings of the last 25 years, says Tim Master, Chartreuse specialist for the importer Frederick Wildman. ‘Since the early 1990s, a six-digit code has been printed on each bottle’s neck label,’ he explains. ‘If you add 1084 (the date of the order’s founding) to the first three digits, you get the year it was bottled.’ Thus the code from this year’s bottles begins with 932.”
http://www.wineandspiritsmagazine.com/news/entry/aged-chartreuse
My VEP bottle has the numeric code “Exemplaire No. 909” on the back label (bottle number 24893) - there is no label on the neck. This is not a six-digit code, so my bottle either is older than 25 years, or I should merely add 909 to 1084 - resulting in 1993.
I will have to check the local shop’s dusty bottles of Chartreuse to see if they have 6-digit codes. Given that little of the green stuff flies off store shelves, I believe that there will be some 20+ year-old liqueur present.