Drink Bill Knott

CORNISH PASTIS

All this lockdown malarkey is playing havoc with my ability to speak French.

It has, like an old car, always been liable to spots of rust. Regular trips to France kept it in some kind of working order. In their absence, I realised the whole chassis was in danger of collapse.

And so, in my corner of Shepherd’s Bush (or Buisson de Berger, as I call it), I have created a small Quartier Français. French films and box sets run constantly on the TV, Edith Piaf and Jacques Brel warble sonorously from the stereo, and the fridge bulges with home-made pâté de campagne, its aroma of herbs, liver and garlic the perfect foil for the glass of pastis that now precedes every meal.

Ah, pastis… P G Wodehouse described the plight of the young man outside the Hotel Magnifique in Cannes, into whose face ‘there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to speak French’. Had the young man simply stiffened his sinews with a Ricard or two in the nearest bar, fluency would have been assured.

Pastis is one of a huge category of aniseed- and liquorice-flavoured drinks – including Greek ouzo, Turkish raki, Italian sambuca, Spanish anís – but it is unmistakably French. Unless it comes from Cornwall, that is: Tarquin’s, the North Cornish distillery famous for its gin, also produces the drolly named Cornish Pastis – and jolly good it is too, counting gorse, orange zest and candied black liquorice among its 13 botanicals.

In France, pastis has a chequered history. Banned during the Second World War as ‘contrary to the values of Vichy France’, it began to be produced again only in 1951. Marseille’s favourite tipple, Pastis 51, takes its name from the year. Absinthe, its close and disreputable cousin, remained banned.

The remarkable, Marseille-born Paul Ricard was the man behind the commercialisation of pastis. Painter, industrialist, Tour de France sponsor and creator of the motor-racing circuit at Le Castellet that now bears his name, Ricard started marketing his new, sophisticated version of pastis in 1932. When he resumed production after the war, advertising was banned but merchandise was not. So Ricard’s ashtrays, mirrors, water jugs and cycling caps became as unmistakably French as a 2CV.

The bottle sitting next to me now, however, is not Ricard, 51 or even Pernod (all three brands are now owned by Pernod-ricard). It is the pastis made by Provençal distiller Henri Bardouin (Waitrose, £22.99), and it is delightful. Very aromatic, with a distinctive whiff of cardamom, it is lighter in texture (but not alcohol) than Ricard and 51, and made with 65 or so herbs and spices.

Je le recommande.

I have come across many cocktail recipes using pastis, but I have yet to find one I like. Stick to the tried and tested: a slug of pastis, about four times the volume of water and an ice cube. The drink will become cloudy (the rather wonderfully named louche effect) but your French will become crystal clear.

At least that is my theory. My wife holds another view on the subject. ‘Your French is still terrible, even after a few drinks. You just think it’s got better.’

She may have a point.