• World-famous aperitif from French Catalonia near Spain
• Generous wine and mistelle base; firm backbone of quinine
• Classically sipped on ice with lemon peel or with a splash of tonic
• Byrrh loves clear spirits such as gin, tequila and mezcal
• Pairs well with blue cheese
• Evolved from quinine bark infusions used to prevent malaria

About Caves Byrrh

Base map data ©2017 Google, Inst. Geogr. Nacional

In 1866, brothers and traveling merchants Simon and Pallade Violet opened a shop in Thuir with a few small barrels of wine. Simon created a unique recipe from a blend of fine Roussillon wines flavoured with plant extracts and enhanced with cinchona bark (quinine). At first called simply “Hygienic Tonic Wine with Cinchona,” the beverage was named Byrrh in 1876. According to one story, the name is a random invention: the letters B Y R R H were simply code letters attached to a few rolls of cloth stored in the haberdashery owned by the Violet brothers. The company expanded rapidly beginning in the late 1800s, and the Violet family built the expansive cellars that exist today. Caves Byrrh contain the largest oak vat in the world, with a capacity of over 1 million liters. Full details

About Quinquina/Chinato

The beneficial properties of the cinchona tree were originally discovered by the Quechua, a people indigenous to Peru and Bolivia, who found it an effective muscle relaxant to calm shivering due to low temperatures. The Quechua would mix the ground bark of cinchona trees with sweetened water to offset the bark’s bitter taste, thus producing tonic water. Jesuit missionaries in the early 1600s brought this back to Rome, where quinine in unextracted form came into use to treat malaria, which was endemic to the swamps and marshes surrounding the city of Rome and responsible for the deaths of several popes, many cardinals and countless common Roman citizens. Quinine was isolated and named in 1820 by French researchers, the name being derived from the original Quechua (Inca) word for the cinchona tree bark, quina or quina-quina, which means “bark of bark” or “holy bark”. Large-scale use of quinine as a malaria preventative started around 1850, consumed in tonics or aperitif wines such as these. With other spices and wines selected to balance, many of these quinine aperitif wines became famous and sought out first as delicious and refreshing aperitif drinks. Full details