Henri Bardouin Pastis Aperitif 750ml

Distilleries et Domaines de Provence was founded in 1898 in Forcalquier, at the foot of the Lure Mountain in Haute-Provence, and passed through a succession of owners over its first eight decades, among them Henri Bardouin, a man devoted to plants and herbs whose name the pastis now carries. A management buyout in 1990 brought the company back into local hands, and the recipes assembled over generations, including some original formulas dating to the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, still guide production today under a small team of master distillers.

Henri Bardouin draws on more than 65 herbs and spices, only a portion of which are ever disclosed, with star anise, licorice root, fennel, cardamom, cinnamon, and ginger among the named ingredients, some sourced from as far away as China and Syria. Many of the aromatic anise plants come directly from the Plateau des Mourres near Forcalquier, harvested at dawn before the sun warms the ground. After drying, the botanicals macerate slowly in alcohol under closely monitored temperature and timing before the pastis is finished at 45 percent alcohol by volume.

Undiluted, the pastis carries deep black licorice and pronounced aniseed. Cut with the traditional five or six parts water, it turns pale and cloudy, releasing a drier, more herbal profile where liquorice and anise remain dominant but are joined by subtler spiced and floral layers.