Benedictine's story goes back to 1510 in the Benedictine Abbey of Fecamp in Normandy, France. It was there that Dom Bernardo Vincelli created a secret alchemical elixir based on the wide range of medicinal plants in the region. The Benedictine abbey produced this elixir for almost three centuries until the French Revolution in 1789 when the recipe was lost.
In 1863, Alexandre Le Grand, a wine merchant from Fecamp, was organising some family papers when he came across a book that had been given to his family by a monk during the French Revolution. This book contained the secrets of Vincelli's elixir, and Le Grand spent a year of his life applying his knowledge of spirits to recreate it. This special elixir is still here today as Benedictine liqueur. |
