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Comment by kenneth | Hacker News Reader

Unlike the author, I do not applaud the artificial limiting if supply. I find it incredibly annoying that it's become impossible to find Chartreuse and that the prices are skyrocketing. It's such a key and irreplaceable ingredient in many cocktails. Unlike a fancy whiskey or whatever, there is little you can substitute for it, so I'm not unable to get my orders at many of my favorite cocktail bars.

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>>I do not applaud the artificial limiting if supply.

If someone asks you to work 14 hour days but you only choose to work 8 hours a day, are you artificially limiting the supply of your labour? Or making a sensible choice for yourself? The monks have decided they don't want to turn the drink they make into a massive corporation that would be required to make it at the volume the world wants to consume. That is to be applauded - not many people have the strength and sensibility to say no when the demands of the world are greater than what is good for them and their community.

I both respect the monks' decision and hope that someone else fills in the supply gap with knockoffs.

I want to think this comment was meant as a praise to the drink, but it sincerely rang as a selfish rant about how unhappy you are because your favorite cocktails will be harder to find.

Why should anyone not be unhappy that their favorite cocktail is harder to find?

The article tried to paint the monks in a favorable light for limiting their production for environmental reasons but the phrasing rings hollow to me. They didn’t stop all production, or release the recipe to the world. They merely limited their output which, much like many companies with monopoly power are currently finding, allows them to have a higher price per unit, while no one can come in and compete in their market.

The original comment did not come across as bitter-sweet as it should be. It came across as entitled, sort of disgruntled by the fact that the monks keep the secret to themselves and the drink can not be industrialized and produced to such an extent that they can enjoy their favorite drinks wherever they please and of course, at a reasonable cost!

Their attitude is akin to how people complain and demand stuff from open source projects and why authors are annoyed when supporting such projects.

It reminds me of "The Menu" movie, the producers got fed up with the consumers and they took drastic actions. Wasn't a big fan of the movie but I can see how creators would go to such extremes or at least fantasize about them.

The flip side of that is it does cost some money to run a monastery, and there aren't a lot of a modern opportunities for them to make money. Nothing wrong with them keeping their trade secret, and not being interested in scaling production.

Managing lots of production is more work and work of a different character than managing small production. They are happier managing small production. It’s odd to fault them for that.

Do you work every hour you possibly could? Would it be reasonable for someone to complain that you owe them more work because they would really like it if you worked more?

I think there’s a middle ground here. It’s very understandable that the monks don’t want to ramp up production. But being monks they also don’t need to acquiesce to the logic of the global market where their product will inevitably become the sole province of the rich. For a contrast see the Westvleteren Trappists who have taken significant efforts to prevent a Pappy van Winkle situation.

It's not quite so simple. A race to supply authentic Chartreuse at extremely high volumes is likely to produce ditchwater. Authentic ditchwater with the correct label on the bottle, but useless for drinking.

Oh yeah this is a real nightmare.

> artificial limiting of supply

It’s a drink produced by one monastic order from (presumably) locally harvested herbs. There most certainly is a natural limit on how much can be sustainably produced before it no longer is the same drink.[1]

They chose to maximise availability over time (and work/pray balance) rather than maximise short term availability.

[1] Where that limit is is of course up for debate, though.

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