“It’s a very well-known drink, but that doesn’t mean a lot of people order it,” says Margot Lecarpentier of the Perroquet, a French drink consisting of pastis, mint syrup and water. The serve is ubiquitous—especially in the south of France, where the tradition of drinking pastis flavored with syrups is deeply ingrained—though rarely given much thought in cocktail circles.
For the Paris-based bartender and owner of Combat in the city’s Belleville neighborhood, the overlooked simplicity of the recipe is part of its appeal. “I really, really love finding these kind of old, forgotten drinks and just putting them back on people’s radar as like, this is kind of cool, maybe we should be drinking this more,” she says.
The Perroquet—which translates to “parrot,” a nod to its bright green hue—belongs to a canon of pastis-plus-syrup combinations that can be found throughout France, including another popular rendition made with grenadine that’s simply called Tomate, or “tomato.” “I like the names that are super simple and super cute and very descriptive,” says Lecarpentier. “It’s kind of old-fashioned.”
Earlier this year, she posted a video on her Instagram feed spotlighting her take on the drink and how to make it at home. “Mint syrup plus pastis isn’t good—it’s too sweet,” says Lecarpentier. Instead, she makes an easy mint shrub with rice vinegar to bring some acidity to the three-ingredient formula.
“For most French people, the Perroquet is not a ‘cocktail,’ it’s just syrup and pastis,” says Lecarpentier of the drink’s long-standing role in apero culture, which existed long before modern cocktail culture took shape in France. But that simplicity is precisely its charm. “I like that it’s nothing fancy,” she says.