A Forcalquier distillery and a line of owners.

Pastis Henri Bardouin is made by Distilleries et Domaines de Provence, a distillery in Forcalquier, in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, at the foot of the Montagne de Lure. The company and French Wikipedia both date it to 1898, when it was founded as the Distillerie de Lure; the company says it began in the town centre. Henri Bardouin, the man the pastis is named after, did not found it. He was one of a line of owners, and the pastis that carries his name came almost a century after the distillery opened.

Forcalquier had a trade in herbs long before it had a pastis. National Geographic Traveller Food, in a piece by Carolyn Boyd first published in spring 2021, describes the town as home to dozens of absinthe distilleries by the 19th century and Distilleries et Domaines de Provence as one of the few to survive. The company tells the same story from its own side: herb gatherers and pedlars of the Lure who became distillers, and a trade hit hard by the world wars and by the French ban on absinthe in 1915.

The company’s own timeline names the owners. In 1924, it says, the painter and wine and spirits merchant Paul Ferréoux bought the distillery, added syrups and soft drinks, and created a pastis called Paulanis, which the company calls the ancestor of Pastis Henri Bardouin; a 1937 advertisement, it adds, shows that its Gentiane de Lure already existed. In 1939 Jean Nalin and Marcel Pascal took over. Henri Bardouin joined in 1944 and went into partnership with Nalin after the war; the company describes him as a man with a passion for aromatic and medicinal plants and credits him with its Farigoule, a wild-thyme liqueur. In 1962, it says, he became the sole owner and widened the range of liqueurs with a génépi and an almond liqueur, Amandine. National Geographic Traveller Food puts it slightly differently, saying that Bardouin ran the distillery until the early 1960s.

A peach wine, a sale to Pernod-Ricard and a buy-back.

The modern company begins with Alain Robert. The company says a new team led by him took over in 1974, launched new products and began to export, and National Geographic Traveller Food also dates his arrival to 1974. In 1984 the distillery was renamed the Distillerie de Haute Provence, according to both the company and French Wikipedia.

Its first big success was not a pastis but a sparkling peach wine. The company says it launched the Carlton in 1986, and French Wikipedia, citing Le Nouvel Observateur, describes it as a way of modernising the distillery’s RinQuinQuin peach apéritif. The Carlton’s success brought a buyer. French Wikipedia, citing Le Figaro in 2012, says the distillery was sold to Pernod-Ricard at the end of 1987, because demand for the Carlton had outgrown the distillery’s capacity; the company gives the same year and reason.

The sale did not last. In 1990, French Wikipedia says, Alain Robert bought the company back, without the Carlton brand, and it took its present name, Distilleries et Domaines de Provence. The company marks the same year with the launch of Pastis Henri Bardouin, which it calls a new start — so the pastis named after the distillery’s former owner was created under the man who followed him.

The recipe is the brand’s main claim. The company describes Pastis Henri Bardouin as a “Pastis Grand Cru” made from a blend of more than 65 plants and spices, and says the recipe is a secret guarded by the distillery. English Wikipedia, citing an archived company product page from 2011, lists ingredients including mugwort, star anise, centaury, grains of paradise, cardamom, nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon, and says a further 21 are kept secret. Zoë McIntyre, writing in September 2012 for the British website Complete France, gave its strength as 45% and reported that the herbs and spices are infused individually before blending, and that the pastis is more concentrated than most, meant to be mixed with about six parts water. Boyd likewise reported that the plants are either macerated or distilled.

The company presents the work as that of four named specialists — a gatherer, a macerator, a distiller and a liqueur maker — and lists among the plants of the Lure thyme, verbena, juniper, rosemary, sage, savory, wormwood, mugwort and angelica.

Design and documentation.

The six brands in this group are amaro and anise spirits: Vecchio Amaro del Capo, Rabarbaro Zucca, Amaro Sibilla, Henri Bardouin, Pastis 51 and Arak Brun. They come from two old families of drinks. Amaro, English Wikipedia says, is a descriptor for an Italian, or Italian-style, herbal liqueur, usually bittersweet and usually served after a meal. Pastis and arak belong to the anise family: English Wikipedia says pastis was first sold commercially by Paul Ricard in 1932, and describes arak, often called the national drink of Lebanon, as a spirit traditionally made from grapes and aniseed.

The anise spirits share one visual effect. Add water and the clear spirit turns a cloudy, milky white — the effect English Wikipedia calls the louche, or the ouzo effect.

The owners behind these names range widely. English Wikipedia lists Pastis 51 as made by Pernod Ricard, the French drinks group, and Henri Bardouin as made by Distilleries et Domaines de Provence, while Arak Brun belongs to a Lebanese wine estate that changed hands in 2000.

A drinks brand’s identity is usually carried less by a single bottle than by a label, a name and the place it promises, because the company behind the name may have changed hands or grown far beyond where it started. Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its spirit is made and how its labels have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

An independent distillery with a pastis at its centre.

Pastis Henri Bardouin sits inside a wider range. The distillery’s own catalogue lists a Pastis Henri Bardouin Prestige and a Pastis Diamant Bleu alongside the original, and around them the Absente absinthes, Gin XII, RinQuinQuin, a gentian apéritif called Gentiane de Lure, a Forcalquier vermouth, the Farigoule and liqueurs including a génépi. French Wikipedia, which lists the same range, describes the company as a société anonyme with 45 employees in 2024.

The family is still in charge. The company says Alain Robert has handed the business to his son, Antoine Robert, and remains at the distillery as an adviser; French Wikipedia names both men in its management. The distillery is at Forcalquier, where the company runs a shop with a small museum space, and it offers visits and workshops in which visitors make their own pastis or gin.

The place is part of the identity. Forcalquier and its country are listed as a “site remarquable du goût,” McIntyre noted in Complete France in 2012, and the company argues that the Montagne de Lure, with its mix of Mediterranean and mountain climate, supports an unusually wide range of aromatic plants; it gives that as the reason the distillery stayed in the town.

Two details help when looking the brand up. The company’s website is distilleries-provence.com, and it sits behind an age check; and Henri Bardouin, whose name the pastis carries, was an owner of the distillery rather than its founder.

For a design guide, Henri Bardouin shows how a small distillery can build a pastis around a person, a place and a long list of plants rather than around a single flavour. Compare Ricard, the Marseille pastis launched in 1932, and Pastis 51, the pastis Pernod launched in 1951. For this guide we use Lure herb green, pastis gold and limestone cream with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Henri Bardouin’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.