Maybe it was the Catalonian solar. Or perhaps it was an excessive amount of Spanish partying. Extra particularly, I questioned if it was the 2 Chartreuse-spiked Mamadetas I’d drunk that morning. However for the primary time in my life, I fainted.

I used to be in Tarragona, a city on Spain’s Mediterranean coast an hour’s practice trip west of Barcelona, for the Santa Tecla pageant, a virtually two-week celebration that takes place each September to honor the city’s patron saint within the type of noisy parades, Catalonia’s iconic castells—or human towers—and plenty of consuming and consuming. It was on the ultimate day of the pageant, after I was amongst hundreds of others within the city’s predominant sq. awaiting the castell competitors, that I began to really feel woozy. Inside just a few seconds, I collapsed. 

Solely moments earlier, I used to be at one among a number of stalls that line the sq. ordering a Mamadeta. Admittedly, this was an odd request, as in Catalonian, the time period means “blow job.” But in Tarragona, it additionally refers back to the signature drink of Santa Tecla, a highlighter-yellow mixture of lemon granita, inexperienced Chartreuse and yellow Chartreuse. Over the previous few days, I’d loved just a few Mamadetas with no critical repercussions. The drink was candy, tart, subtly herbaceous and refreshing—seemingly innocuous. Through the pageant, individuals had been downing Mamadetas in plastic cups or in Chartreuse-branded containers that resembled bicycle squirt bottles, full with a lanyard for hands-free consuming. (I used to be advised by multiple individual that 2024 was the thirtieth anniversary of this explicit vessel.) Was this festive, foolish, sugary drink the supply of my fainting spell? I didn’t suppose so. However I did marvel how such an iconic natural liqueur made by monks in France grew to become so intrinsically linked with a pageant in Spain. 

The historical past of Chartreuse may be traced again to the early seventeenth century, when Carthusian monks in France got a recipe for an “elixir of lengthy life.” Over the centuries, it took totally different varieties, finally arriving at one thing near its present state—an herbaceous inexperienced liqueur—in 1764. In 1841, the Chartreuse model was formally registered. The monks continued to provide the drink at their monastery in Fourvoirie, north of Grenoble, till 1903, when France banned monastic orders and subsequently booted all of its monks in another country. The Carthusian Fathers regrouped in Tarragona, Spain, which is the place they produced the drink till 1989. As of late, Chartreuse is made, as soon as once more, in France, the combo of 130 totally different herbs allegedly identified by solely two monks. But the drink stays beloved in Tarragona.

To familiarize myself with the stuff, I ended into Bodega Gerard, a tiny wine store in Tarragona’s medieval metropolis heart. 

“Ninety % of Chartreuse manufacturing goes to Tarragona,” says proprietor Gerard Esquerré Tomàs, who provides that he’d already offered 92 circumstances throughout Santa Tecla alone. For years, he’s been a collector of uncommon bottles of Chartreuse, and he climbs a ladder to point out me a few of his prized examples: a Tarragona-made bottle from 1976 that he claims is price 5,000 euros, a case of mini-bottles from the Nineteen Fifties that promote for 90 euros every, and a special-edition bottle from 2007. His stash additionally consists of an open bottle from 1959, and he’s form sufficient to provide me a thimble-sized nip of it—my first style of Chartreuse. I discover it unctuous and spicy, nearly wasabi-like, with boozy, peppery aromas that rise into my nostril. 

“Like Sichuan pepper—however with extra electrical energy,” says Ricard Llop, the chef of El Cup Vell, an area restaurant, and one among my companions that day. That Chartreuse is without doubt one of the most unusual liqueurs I’d ever tasted, but simply reverse these uncommon bottles price hundreds of euros, Gerard additionally has 4 slushy machines churning away lemon granita for Mamadetas. I ask him what he thinks in regards to the pageant’s signature drink.

“Mamadeta is a masquerade,” says Gerard with clear contempt. “They add lemon granita to it as a result of they don’t respect the flavour of Chartreuse.” I order one anyway, and he pours a shot of inexperienced Chartreuse right into a plastic cup and tops it with granita, serving the drink with an oversize paper straw. It’s candy, the granita industrial-tasting, with an ’80s-era neon inexperienced hue. Other than the alcohol content material and raunchy nomenclature, my first Mamadeta jogs my memory of one thing I might have drunk at 7-Eleven as a child. 

Gerard had talked about that French individuals come to Tarragona particularly to drink Chartreuse, and as if on cue, straight outdoors his store I meet a complete French prolonged household decked out in Chartreuse-branded merch: hats, sun shades, T-shirts and wristbands. 

“We’ve been coming right here since 2016—we love Chartreuse,” says Agatha Devoireau, the matriarch, who has nails painted inexperienced and yellow with Chartreuse iconography. “We come yearly to share this ambiance with our household—it’s very particular. In France, it’s not the identical.”

I ask what number of Mamadetas she’ll drink at present, and with out lacking a beat, she tells me, “It’s not the quantity, it’s the standard.”

Elsa, a local of Tarragona, makes it clear to me that locals aren’t slamming Mamadetas year-round.

“It’s just for Santa Tecla,” she says, including that she may often have a glass of Chartreuse after lunch or with dessert. “The remainder of the 12 months, we drink vermouth and beer.”

I wander via the slim, historic streets of Tarragona with my plastic cup, struggling to navigate the crowds, which quantity within the hundreds. There are seemingly countless processions full with marching bands, animal effigies spouting piercingly loud firecrackers, conventional dancing and creepy medieval-looking masks, all set to the backdrop of Chartreuse pennants and neon yellow drinks. 

Late the following morning, I head to Tarragona’s predominant sq. prematurely of the large castell competitors. I’m early, so I am going to one among maybe a dozen stalls outfitted with slushy machines and order a plastic cup of anchovy-stuffed olives and a Mamadeta. Sergi, a local of Tarragona who’s working the stall, reveals me the bottle of Chartreuse he makes use of, a mix of yellow and inexperienced made particularly by the distillery for the pageant.

“It’s unbelievable. It’s simple to drink,” says Sergi, after I ask him what he thinks in regards to the Mamadeta. I, alternatively, am nonetheless combating the sweetness, and am tempted to season it with a few of my olive brine to make a grimy Mamadeta. Recalling a tip from an area, I head throughout the sq. to Sirvent, a producer of ice lotions and granitas since 1860. 

“We make it with actual lemons,” says the server, of the home granita. “We expect that is higher.” And he’s proper: A beneficiant pour of Chartreuse mixed with this extra nuanced granita leads to a drink that’s simply barely boozier, extra herbaceous and fewer candy.

I used to be near understanding—perhaps even liking—this drink. However solely moments later I’d discover myself with a robust rush of the chilly sweats, semiconscious and held up by locals, being steered towards a primary help tent. Even when the Mamadetas—extra sugar than booze—had been accountable, it was price it.