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 1863, however, Monsieur Alexander Le Grand of Fécamp chanced on an ancient tome in which Dom Vincelli's formula had been scribbled. The Le Grand family promptly began making Elixir again and now it is a world-wide favorite under the name Benedictine.
Having made Benedictine alone for 358 years, the Frenchmen of Fécamp recently launched a new line—"B and B" (for Benedictine & Brandy). This combination is familiar to every barfly who has found Benedictine too saccharine, mixed Cognac with it for a drier beverage. In such abrupt mixing, however, brandy floats on rather than blends with Benedictine. The Manhattan liquor firm, of Julius Wile Sons & Co. spent two years persuading the Le Grand family that it could do a better job by aging the two together. Last week Julius Wile got the first shipment, bottled in the ancient bottle devised by the monks and bearing the traditional Benedictine symbol—D.O.M. (for Deo Optimo Maximo, "To God most good most great").