There is a fabulous legend around how the name calvados first came about...

The world’s first vintage champagne was made in 1810, just outside the city of Reims in northeastern France, by a bright, bold, business-savvy trailblazing widow (‘veuve’ in French) called Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin, forever immortalised as Veuve Clicquot.

The story of Green Chartreuse, the famous French liqueur still hand-crafted in the Chartreuse Mountains, is steeped in myth, monks and a...