EAST LANCASHIRE has been marking the centenary of the Armistice which halted fighting in the Great War.

There have been many solemn but uplifting services, music, books, displays and gatherings.

The next few days mark a centenary with a difference – the introduction to the area of the French liqueur Bénedictine which quickly became a favourite tipple from Colne to Blackburn and from Clitheroe to Darwen.

Today, East Lancashire accounts for more than 20 per cent of the UK consumption of Béne as it is known.

Most pubs and clubs have it on Optic but in bars away from the area you will be lucky to find a dusty half-empty bottle hiding away. And it probably won’t be at its best.

Thousands of young men from the valleys of the Ribble, the Calder and the Irwell; from Blackburn, Darwen and Chorley died in the war.

But many of those who came back brought with them a complimentary bottle of Bénedictine conjured up magically at Fécamp, on the Normandy coast.

It was a touching gesture – and a brilliant piece of marketing.

By early December it was on Optic – or whatever spirits measures were used in those days – at Burnley Miners’ Club and today they are reckoned to sell more than any other outlet outside France.

The taste has endured, being passed down to younger members of families who can trace their roots back to before the Great War.

Brave lads from the mill towns went off full of patriotic enthusiasm, determined to make the best of it away from the all-pervading drabness and poverty.

Of course it didn’t take long before their romantic ideas were driven into the mud of the trenches and blasted by the criss-crossing staccato of machine guns and the crunch of heavy artillery.

Thousands were killed and thousands more were disabled and damaged physically or mentally. When the lucky ones returned home, the taste for adventure with which they had set out had long gone. But they did bring back with them a taste for the mysterious French liqueur.

The sweet, dark-amber mixture of some 27 herbs and spices from all over the world dates back 500 years and was produced by the Bénedictine monks until the French revolution when the secret mixture was lost in the turmoil. It was rediscovered 60 years later by Alexandre le Grand who modernised the recipe and later built the palatial distillery near Le Havre.