Byrrh

Byrrh is Catalan an aperitif wine created with Thuir in 1886.

History

The brothers Pallade and Purple Simon, travelling clothiers, decide to benefit from the viticultural fever that knows the area to work out a wine aperitif aromatized with the Quinquina. They mix dry wines, mistelles and obtain a product so tonic and reinvigorating that, during its launching, he is regarded as a drug and is sold only in pharmacy.

Profiting from this “soft” drink reputation, Byrrh is a sharp business success at the beginning of the XXe century and reached in the years 1930, in spite of a name complicating exports (Byrrh inevitably evokes beer for the english-speaking and the German-speaking ones), a world notority.

The Second world war starts its decline. The sweet aperitif wines (Banyuls, muscatels of Frontignan or Rivesaltes, etc), doped by the tax incentives, supplant Byrrh, which passes from mode.

In 1977 the family company, divided by the dissensions, is repurchased by Pernod-Ricard.

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