ONE SHOULD HAVE an established policy when a strange new bottle of liquor arrives on one's doorstep. It is like a baby in a basket: Once you bring it into your house, you must watch over it as if it were your own. Work with it carefully and it will thrive, mature, charm your guests and keep you warm in old age. Allow it to mix with the wrong associates and you will end up the central figure in a farfetched melodrama.

My new guest is a bottle of Génépy des Alpes, which arrived on an otherwise innocent-looking sunny day. As with a baby, I first endeavored to ascertain its origins. Its papers proclaim Génépy des Alpes—which Google Translate helpfully informs me means "Génépy Alps"; isn't technology grand?—to be a "legendary alpine herbal liqueur," which startled me, because I was holding the legendary thing in my hands. Despite the liquor's French pedigree—they mix up the stuff in Chambéry using a hush-hush recipe—the marketing copy provided by one distributor sounds more Californian ("Efforts to brand this style of product have been nothing short of epic"—dude, really?), and the importer's serving suggestions are as flimsy as edelweiss. The liqueur is "very welcome after a fondue," the label says, but what isn't welcome after a fondue? "Serve immediately after very satisfying sex," it might as well say, "and enjoy."

I ushered the new arrival out of its things and took a good look at it. Génépy des Alpes is pale green, almost jaundicey, an alarming color for a baby but an alluring one in a shot glass. It has a light, crisp smell, much better than a baby, presumably due to the "petite and rare variety of artemisia" that the label tells me is "most prominent" in the taste. It reminded me of Chartreuse, the French liqueur pretentious people drink in novels and pretentious novelists serve to people, so I poured a dose of that into a shot glass and lined them up. They eyed each other like step-siblings. "We are all family," I told them. "My love for you, Chartreuse, will not diminish with this new arrival." The silence seemed companionable, which I thought was a good start, and so I tried Génépy des Alpes as a substitute for Chartreuse in a Last Word, a cocktail renowned in my household because a) it's weird, b) it's easy to make and c) it gets everyone knackered. I christened this variation the Yodeler, because it's an Alpine Last Word—get it?

The Yodeler

¾ ounce Génépy des Alpes