Cordial is cool in French cafes. The more flavours you have the greater your cafe cred, and the more fun you can have with cocktails. A beer with grenadine will become a ‘tango’ because that’s what you’ll feel like doing, a beer with orange liquor will become a ‘piconbeer’, although why would you? And a beer with any cordial at all becomes a ‘gommer’ because the colour of the beer is erased by the syrup. All this and more was learnt from Romain, the youngest and most hospitable cafe owner in the south of France.

Romain was 21 and undertaking his masters degree in economics when the cafe in his hometown came up for sale. He said ‘the adventure of working in my village was too significant’ so he gave up his student life, and with a 2 month apprenticeship courtesy of his cousin, learned how to mix a ‘Mauresque‘ & live without sleep. For 330 days he went to work every day. Then just as the adventure was wearing thin, an old school friend and hospitality professional, the trim and tattooed Nelle, turned up and the rest is on the roster.

The rules for being a cafe owner in Provence are fluid. In the summer the latest closing time is 2am, in winter it is 1am. There is a mandatory course for the responsible service of alcohol, and penalties can be stiff, especially if the police brought in to break up a scuffle find themselves on the receiving end. But being open every day, being the one thing in a small community that everyone can rely on, is the key to success. Providing the means to equal shouting time, where every drink – even the smallest Heineken I have ever seen is all €2 – is the next obvious but clever step. Then understanding the principle of being together, of community, is the cream on the cake, the froth on the beer.

The craziest thing is that Romain doesn’t drink. He might have a panaché, a shandy, to be convivial, but apart from that he sticks to syrup. The reason for the significance of returning home mid-masters, is that his family have lived and worked in the village continuously since 1628. Who could bear the burden of abdication after nearly 400 years…? With such dedication Romain will be mayor of the village by the time he’s 30, a perfect age for a coronation, a carousal… and a cordial.