Bijou
A Bijou is 40ml of London Dry gin, 20ml of green Chartreuse, 20ml of sweet vermouth and two dashes of orange bitters, stirred over cubed ice for 30 seconds and strained into a chilled Nick and Nora glass, with a lemon twist expressed over it and a cherry. About 3.0 UK units. The Oxford Companion says the drink appears to be Harry Johnson’s adaptation of a cocktail first recorded in St. Louis and Cincinnati in the spring of 1895, and that his version appeared in the 1900 edition of his Bartenders’ Manual. Bijou is French for jewel, and Difford’s Guide gives the explanation that each bottle stands for a stone by its colour: gin for diamond, vermouth for ruby, Chartreuse for emerald. At 55% ABV on Chartreuse’s own page, green Chartreuse is the force to manage. Many recipes pour the three in equal measures; ours doubles the gin so its juniper holds against the Chartreuse, with the vermouth giving body and the bitters tying the herbs together.
Glassware: Nick & Nora Glass
Garnish: Luxardo maraschino cherry and Lemon twist expressed over the glass
Ingredients
40ml
High-juniper London Dry, around 40% ABV. At twice the Chartreuse measure it is the spine of the drink.
20ml
Green, not yellow: 55% ABV and intensely herbal. Twenty millilitres is a quarter of the drink and still the loudest thing in it.
20ml
Italian-style, at our working figure of around 16% ABV; we use it within a month of opening and keep it cold. It gives the body and sweetness the gin and Chartreuse lack.
2 dashes
Two dashes. They bridge the juniper, the Chartreuse’s herbs and the vermouth’s spice; more starts to compete with the Chartreuse.
Instructions
Chill a Nick and Nora glass in the freezer.
Add the gin, green Chartreuse, sweet vermouth and orange bitters to a mixing glass.
Fill with cubed ice and stir for 30 seconds.
Strain into the chilled glass.
Express a lemon twist over the drink, then discard it or rest it on the rim.
Add a cherry.
Our version
The Bijou is usually traced to Harry Johnson’s 1900 Bartenders’ Manual and is often poured in equal measures. Ours is 40ml of gin to 20ml each of green Chartreuse and sweet vermouth, so the gin holds against the Chartreuse.
Source: our own specification. Last checked 9 October 2026.
Expert Tip
Pick a gin with plenty of juniper. Green Chartreuse takes over anything soft, and a floral gin disappears behind it. Stir for the full 30 seconds with cubed ice. Under-stirred, the Bijou is hot and sharp; properly diluted, the three bottles knit together. Small or cracked ice chills fastest, so cut the stir short if that is all you have. Use sweet vermouth opened within the month and kept in the fridge. Oxidised vermouth tastes flat and sour, and in a three-bottle drink there is nowhere for that to hide.
Behind the Bijou
Flavour Profile
A Drink Named After Jewels
The Oxford Companion says the Bijou appears to be Harry Johnson’s adaptation of a cocktail first recorded in St. Louis and Cincinnati in the spring of 1895, and that his version, in the 1900 edition of his Bartenders’ Manual, replaced the Grand Marnier of the Cincinnati recipe with green Chartreuse. In the 1900 manual itself it is a third of a wine glass each of green Chartreuse, Italian vermouth and Plymouth gin with a dash of orange bitters, mixed with a spoon, strained, and finished with a lemon peel squeezed on top. The Oxford Companion says Johnson, a Prussian-born bartender, opened his first bar in Chicago in 1868 and later ran several in New York, and that his Bartenders’ Manual of 1882 was the first work of its kind to explain how to run a bar.
Bijou is French for jewel, and the usual reading of the name, which Difford’s Guide gives too, is by colour: gin for diamond, sweet vermouth for ruby, green Chartreuse for emerald. It sits with the Martinez and the Manhattan among the stirred drinks of the period, each a spirit softened by an aromatised wine.
Green Chartreuse
Chartreuse’s own page says the Chartreux Fathers still make green Chartreuse, with the plants ground by the monks at the Grande Chartreuse monastery; the page does not give the recipe. It is bottled at 55% ABV and tastes green, sweet and faintly medicinal, with warmth all the way through rather than only at the finish. In a Bijou it is the loudest voice, so the gin has to be a high-juniper London Dry.
Sweet Vermouth
The vermouth gives body and sweetness, so the gin and Chartreuse are not two strong spirits alone in a glass. It is a fortified wine and oxidises once opened: we keep it in the fridge and finish it within the month. In our view Carpano Antica Formula and Cocchi Storico Vermouth di Torino both have the weight to stand next to the Chartreuse.
The Stir
Stirred, not shaken: shaking clouds a drink with no citrus in it and leaves it frothy. Stir for 30 seconds with cubed ice. The water matters as much as the cold, because an under-diluted Bijou is sharp and hot, and a properly diluted one tastes of a single drink. Small or cracked ice chills and dilutes fastest, so it needs a shorter stir; large, dense cubes need the full 30 seconds.
The Bijou Beside Its Relations
The Bijou beside a Chartreuse sour (the Last Word, to the IBA’s measures) and a vermouth-heavy gin drink (our Hanky Panky); UK units ours
Bijou (ours)
- Gin
- 40ml
- Herbal element
- 20ml green Chartreuse
- Other
- 20ml sweet vermouth, two dashes orange bitters
- Method
- Stirred
- UK units
- About 3.0
Last Word
- Gin
- 22.5ml
- Herbal element
- 22.5ml green Chartreuse
- Other
- 22.5ml maraschino, 22.5ml lime
- Method
- Shaken
- UK units
- About 2.9
Hanky Panky
- Gin
- 45ml
- Herbal element
- 7.5ml Fernet-Branca
- Other
- 45ml sweet vermouth
- Method
- Stirred
- UK units
- About 2.8
| Drink | Gin | Herbal element | Other | Method | UK units |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bijou (ours) | 40ml | 20ml green Chartreuse | 20ml sweet vermouth, two dashes orange bitters | Stirred | About 3.0 |
| Last Word | 22.5ml | 22.5ml green Chartreuse | 22.5ml maraschino, 22.5ml lime | Shaken | About 2.9 |
| Hanky Panky | 45ml | 7.5ml Fernet-Branca | 45ml sweet vermouth | Stirred | About 2.8 |
The Last Word puts green Chartreuse into a sour; the Hanky Panky swaps it for Fernet-Branca against more vermouth.
How to Serve It
Up, in a Nick and Nora glass from the freezer, with lemon oil over the surface and a cherry in the glass. At about three units it is a strong after-dinner drink, so pour it small and drink it cold.
Make it at home
The Spirit
GinGin is a spirit flavoured with juniper berries. Under the retained Regulation (EC) 110/2008, juniper must lead the taste, the floor is 37.5% ABV, and the route the flavour takes sets the grade: plain gin, distilled gin or London gin. Our recipes count it at 40%, and it carries the Martini, the Negroni and the Gin and Tonic.
Master the Techniques
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Bijou?
Why is it called a Bijou?
Why is a Bijou hard to balance?
Should a Bijou be shaken or stirred?
Bijou or Last Word: what is the difference?
How strong is a Bijou?
Sources.
Checked between 18 October and 19 October 2026.
- The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails (David Wondrich), “The Bijou Cocktail” (secondary source: Harry Johnson’s adaptation of a cocktail first recorded in St. Louis and Cincinnati in spring 1895; Johnson’s version in the 1900 Bartenders’ Manual with green Chartreuse; revived in the 2000s).
- The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails (Anistatia R. Miller and Jared M. Brown), “Johnson, Harry” (secondary source: Prussian-born American bartender; first bar in Chicago in 1868, then bars in New York; his 1882 New and Improved Bartenders’ Manual; the 1888 revised edition).
- Difford’s Guide, “Bijou Cocktail (Difford’s recipe)” (secondary source: adapted from Harry Johnson’s 1900 Bartender’s Manual; jewel colours of gin, rosso vermouth and Chartreuse verte).
- Chartreuse, “Green Chartreuse” (maker’s page: 55% vol.; made by the Chartreux Fathers; plants ground by the monks at the Grande Chartreuse monastery).
- IBA, “Last Word” (official specification: 22.5ml each of gin, green Chartreuse, Maraschino Luxardo, fresh lime juice).
- Internet Archive (vintage-cocktail-books-euvs), “Harry Johnson’s New and Improved Bartenders’ Manual (1900)” (primary source: Bijou Cocktail, a third of a wine glass each of green Chartreuse, Italian vermouth and Plymouth gin, a dash of orange bitters, mixed with a spoon and strained, a lemon peel squeezed on top).
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Last Word
A Last Word is 22.5ml each of gin, green Chartreuse, maraschino liqueur and fresh lime juice, shaken hard for 10 to 12 seconds and double strained into a chilled Nick & Nora or coupe. About 2.9 UK units. The measures are the IBA’s; the cherry or lime twist is ours. The Oxford Companion says the drink first appears in print in the Detroit Athletic Club News in 1916, on a menu at 35 cents, a high price then. Ted Saucier’s Bottoms Up of 1951 prints the recipe, quoting a club source who says Frank Fogarty, a vaudeville monologist, introduced it there about thirty years earlier. In 2003 Murray Stenson put it on the menu at the Zig Zag Café in Seattle, from where it spread, the Companion says. Four strong flavours at equal volume, and none takes over. Chartreuse brings herbs and heat, maraschino cherry and a bitter almond edge, lime the acid, and gin holds them together.
Martinez
A Martinez is 45ml London Dry gin and 45ml sweet vermouth with a bar spoon (5ml) of maraschino and two dashes of orange bitters, stirred with ice for 20 to 30 seconds and poured into a cold coupe under a twist of lemon peel. About 2.7 UK units. The measures follow the IBA. It is usually named as the Martini’s forerunner, and Punch says historians squabble over where it came from. O. H. Byron’s guide of 1884, in the Internet Archive’s scan, lists a Martinez as “Same as Manhattan, only you substitute gin for whisky”; Jerry Thomas’s Bar-Tender’s Guide of 1887, in the Internet Archive’s scan, gives a full recipe on Old Tom gin, with more vermouth than gin, maraschino and Boker’s bitters. Equal parts on London Dry makes a drier, sharper drink than those early versions. Old Tom gin, a shorter vermouth measure and Angostura make the softer, sweeter variation.
Champs-Élysées
A Champs-Élysées is 45ml of cognac, 15ml of green Chartreuse, 20ml of fresh lemon juice, 10ml of sugar syrup and a dash of Angostura, shaken hard with ice for 10 to 12 seconds and double strained into a chilled coupe, finished with an expressed lemon twist. About 2.6 UK units. Difford’s Guide gives the earliest known recipe as the one in Drinks, Long and Short by Nina Toye and A. H. Adair, published in 1925: three parts brandy, one of Chartreuse and one and a half of sweetened lemon juice, with a dash of Angostura. Our measures keep the three to one of brandy to Chartreuse and split the sweetened lemon into fresh juice and syrup. It reads as a Sidecar with green Chartreuse in place of the orange liqueur. Chartreuse is 55% ABV on its own page and, in our view, intensely herbal, so even a small measure changes the whole drink: the cognac and lemon are still there, under a layer of mountain herbs.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 19 October 2026