THE HOUSE OF PERNOD AND SONS
Let us study each raw material used in this process.
Wormwood - "the wormwood or bitter armoise", we
read in the work of Dr. Lehameau entitled Plants, Remedies
and Diseases, ³grows in almost all countries; the dry, arid,
rocky terrain, the higher elevations, mountainous and cold,
are the places where it is normally found. A herbaceous
and vigorous plant, wormwood has a rather strong stem,
erect, hard, stiff, and grooved, of ashy gray, filled with white
marrow, reaching 70 to 80 centimeters and even a meter
in height. (In 1894 a grand wormwood plant harvested on
the Pernod factory property measured 1.8 meters in
height.) The alternate leaves, heavily indented, are rather
large, gray-green and silvery on top, whiter and silkier
underneath. The flowers are numerous, resembling small
globes, yellow, and arranged in small bunches; the root is
woody, vibrant, and twirling.
The smell of wormwood is very strong and is not lost in
drying, especially when drying is done carefully; its flavor is
excessively bitter and penetrating.
The tonic virtues, stimulative, vermifugal and diuretic, of
wormwood have been known for a very long time and have
rendered it of great use in medicine and the veterinary arts.
It can perhaps be classified as one of our most valuable
indigenous plants, capable in many cases of replacing
quinine.
To supplement this information let us add that the grand and the petite wormwood are the varieties most
usually cultivated.
