Pernod can be classified as a “Pastis”, although true pastis traditionally does include licorice root, while Pernod doesn’t.
Pastis liqueurs are quite popular in France, and other parts of Europe, where it is often served neat in a small tumbler, along with a small pitcher of ice water. The customer then slowly pours their desired amount of ice water into the glass. This will cause the greenish, or sometimes clear, pastis to cloud up, or “louche”. Some of you might see the similarity between this process, and the manner in which Absinthe was once popularly served, slowly dripping ice water into their Absinthe, often also putting a small slotted spoon over the glass, onto which a sugar cube was positioned, so that the ice water could gradually dissolve the sugar into the drink.
Problems arose for the Pernod company when France banned Absinthe due to the raging propaganda of the day which appeared to indicate that Absinthe was a dangerous hallucinogen, which could drive people so crazy that they would commit murder and other crimes.
Today, it is fairly well documented that this is not the case, but the damage was done, and Pernod had to cease production of “Pernod Fils” the product which was the foundation of the company. Eventually, they devised a recipe for a product which would still have the basic flavor of Absinthe, but without the use of “wormwood”, which was the ingredient which was believed to produce the undesired “effects” associated with Absinthe. During this re-formulation, Pernod also sweetened up the product, so that it could be served with just ice water, and thus not needing to first dissolve the sugar with the ice water during service.
Here in America, we never really caught onto the whole “Absinthe” thing. Sure, we used Absinthe, but usually not simply by itself, but instead to just use a dash or two as a flavoring for our cocktails. Today this is still the case, and while in France you will often see people served their Pernod in a glass all by itself, in America you will usually only see it used a dash at a time in drinks, or perhaps a slight teaspoon used to cook mussels, shrimp, salmon, or other seafood which provides a great pairing for the anis/fennel/licorice flavor.
If you don’t already have a bottle of Pernod gathering dust in your cupboards, I’d recommend picking up a bottle of it one of these days and try simply serving an ounce of it in a small tumbler, filled with ice, and topped with about two ounces of ice water. It makes a delightfully refreshing drink to have while sitting on a sunny porch on a warm summer day.
Since you don’t always have a warm summer day to accompany your Pernod, you might want to also familiarize yourself with some cocktails which use a little Pernod as an ingredient. We’ve covered some of these in the past, such as the Corpse Reviver, De la Louisiane, and Sazerac. To that list, I would like to add the Chrysanthemum Cocktail:
Chrysanthemum Cocktail
- 1 1/2 ounce dry vermouth
- 3/4 ounce Benedictine
- 3 dashes Pernod
Stir with ice. Strain into a cocktail glass.
Garnish with a twist of orange
