XX | XX | OF PONTARLIER (DOUBS) | 9 | XX |
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but to that of more and more fans, so that the recipe had |
already acquired monetary value when when Mr. Henri |
Louis Pernod acquired it to exploit it commercially. |
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This happened in 1797. It was at that time the first |
absinthe factory was built. The establishment was created |
under extremely modest conditions, even for Couvet; the |
building where the industry was born still exists; it |
measures eight meters long by four meters broad by four |
meters high. Subsequently enlarged, the factory was not |
long in becoming too small and, in 1805, Mr. Pernod not |
being able to satisfy demand by the French customers |
which had taken to his product with a marked favor, fixed |
upon Pontarlier as the place to avoid the high taxes levied |
by the tax department upon Swiss Absinthe. |
We have before our eyes the contract dated the 25th day of |
the fifth month of the 13th year (French Republican |
calendar) by which Sir Benoit-Hilaire Courbe leases to |
Pernod & Sons for the price of 180 francs per year, a |
location designated as a house on Grand Street in |
Pontarlier, for the establishment of a green water factory. |
This tiny distillery could hardly foresee the splendid |
establishment which rises today at the edge of Doubs: two |
small apparatuses producing 16 liters per day each. |
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When Mr. Louis Pernod, currently still one of the heads |
of the house, and his brother, Fritz, unfortunately since |
deceased (March 17, 1880), took over the direction of the |
business in the absence of their father, whom they had |
lost early, the house was already on a good road, because |
the daily production had reached the figure of 450 liters.
|
(Translated by "Artemis" for your pleasure.) |