From Pernod 51 to Pastis 51.

The number on the bottle is a date, not a strength. Pastis 51 was launched in 1951 by Pernod, and French Wikipedia says it first went on sale as Pernod 51, named after the year. Pernod Ricard, which owns it today, says the drink was created by Pernod “when the ban on aniseed-flavoured aperitifs was lifted.” English Wikipedia’s timeline of the Pernod Ricard group has the same entry: in 1951 Pastis 51 was launched.

Pernod was already an old name in anise drinks by then. English Wikipedia traces the Pernod line to Maison Pernod Fils, founded at Pontarlier in 1805, and records that separate Pernod distilleries came together as Les Établissements Pernod in 1926. Anise drinks had a stop-start history in France. French Wikipedia says they were banned in 1915, allowed back in 1922, and that a decree of 1938 set the permitted strength at 45 degrees — which gave Pernod the name of another product, Pernod 45. Under the Vichy government, drinks stronger than 16 degrees were banned again, and French Wikipedia says that when that ban was finally repealed, Pernod marked the moment with a new pastis named after the year of its return.

The word pastis was already in use on labels by then. Paul Ricard had launched his Marseille pastis in 1932, and French Wikipedia credits Ricard with the first use of the word on the label of an anise apéritif.

Two numbered Pernods caused confusion. French Wikipedia says that in 1954 the company renamed Pernod 51 as Pastis 51 to end the mix-up with Pernod 45; Pastis, from the Provençal for a mixture, became the word on the label.

A merger, a move to Marseille and a single French company.

Pastis 51 has been a Pernod Ricard brand since 1975. That year Pernod and its old Marseille rival Ricard merged to create the Pernod Ricard group, English Wikipedia says. For more than four decades after the merger, BFM Bourse later reported, the group’s two French companies, Pernod and Ricard, kept separate legal status, and Pastis 51 stayed with Pernod.

Production moved south. In January 2003 just-drinks reported that Pernod, then a Pernod Ricard subsidiary, planned to concentrate all production of Pastis 51 and its other aniseed drinks at its plant in Marseille. Pernod Ricard now describes Pastis 51 as “a Pastis made in Marseille.”

The corporate split ended in 2020. BFM Bourse reported on 1 October 2019 that Pernod Ricard planned to merge Pernod and Ricard into a single company, Pernod Ricard France, based in Marseille, from 1 July 2020. The law firm Gide, which advised on the deal, reported in July 2020 that the merger had been completed on 30 June 2020, with Pernod absorbed by Ricard.

The recipe, as Pernod Ricard describes it, is built on Chinese star anise, aromatic plants from Provence, fennel and liquorice. The company suggests one part Pastis 51 to five parts water with a little ice, or a “51 Piscine” — one part to seven parts water with plenty of ice. French Wikipedia dates the piscine serve, in an oversized glass, to 2010.

French Wikipedia gives a fuller account of how it is made: neutral alcohol flavoured with extracts of star anise from China or Vietnam, aromatic plants from Provence, fennel, liquorice and African cola nut, with star anise and fennel macerated in alcohol and then distilled twice to obtain anethole. The blend is cut with purified water to 45%, the same strength that gave Pernod 45 its name. French Wikipedia lists its colour as yellow.

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.

A label that dropped the family crest.

The brand’s look has shifted from Pernod towards Marseille. French Wikipedia says the bottle was redesigned in 1995: the Pernod coat of arms was removed, the words “Pastis de Marseille” were given prominence, and the new label was meant to evoke a red sun reflected in the sea.

Its slogans have followed the same path, French Wikipedia says. In the 1970s the line was “Heureux comme un 51 dans l’eau” — happy as a 51 in water; from 1985 it was “Vrai comme Pastis 51,” true as Pastis 51, which put authenticity first; and the current line is “Ne perdez pas le Sud” — don’t lose the South. French Wikipedia also says the brand has issued a special collectors’ bottle each year.

The range has grown around the original. French Wikipedia lists 51 Citron, a lemon version, in 2004; 51 Rosé in 2013, at 35%, flavoured with red fruits and pink grapefruit; and 51 Glacial in 2014, a mint-flavoured anise drink without liquorice.

A few details help when looking the brand up. The official French site is 51.fr; Pernod Ricard lists the brand on its own site as Pastis 51, where it notes that the drink was created by Pernod.

For a design guide, Pastis 51 shows how a brand named after a year can let the number become the identity, and how a label can move from a company crest to an image of a place. Compare Ricard, its old rival and now its stablemate in Pernod Ricard France, and Pernod, the anise brand of the house that launched it. For this guide we use sea blue, setting-sun red and pastis yellow with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Pastis 51’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.