Business: New Line

In the quiet town of Fécamp, France, some 25 miles northeast of Le Havre, the Benedictine monks for centuries had a monastery. In 1510 one of the monks, Dom Bernardo Vincelli, discovered that a magnificent cordial could be made by mixing certain herbs with honey, sugar and alcohol. Named "Elixir," the beverage lured King Francis I to Fécamp in 1534 to drink it, was a European favorite by the time of the French Revolution. Then the Benedictine monastery at Fécamp was destroyed, the monks dispersed, the secret of Elixir apparently lost forever. In...

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