Bijou

You can, and it makes a gentler drink. Yellow is 40 percent alcohol against green's 55, sweeter, and more honeyed than piney. The result is closer to a herbal Martinez than to the original. Keep the equal-parts ratio if you go yellow; it needs the volume to register.

Go to 45 ml gin, 22 ml Chartreuse, 22 ml sweet vermouth. That keeps the pine and the medicinal herbs present without letting them take the whole glass, and the gin gets room to show its own botanicals. Plenty of bars pour it this way and still call it a Bijou.

Not really. Green Chartreuse is made by a religious order from a recipe nobody outside it has, and supply has been tight since they capped production. Génépy des Alpes is the nearest thing on a shelf, lighter and less sweet, and it works if you add a few milliliters more.

French for jewel. The old accounts read the three main ingredients as gemstones, gin for diamond, Chartreuse for emerald, vermouth for ruby, which is charming and also explains why the proportions are equal. Nobody bothers with the conceit at the bar, but it does tell you the drink was meant to look striking.

A classic Bijou calls for 30 ml (1 oz) Gin, 30 ml (1 oz) Green Chartreuse, 30 ml (1 oz) Sweet vermouth, 1 dash orange bitters Orange bitters. That single-serve spec scales cleanly — the recipe above converts it to oz and multiplies it for 2–4 drinks.

A standard Bijou is roughly 37% ABV once mixed (before ice melt softens it further). That makes it spirit-forward — closer to a Martini than to a beer, so sip it slowly.

A Bijou is shaken. About 13 seconds with plenty of ice chills and dilutes it correctly.