Monin

Georges Monin was eighteen when he set up in Bourges in 1912, selling wine and spirits. The syrups came in the 1920s, out of his own dissatisfaction with the cordials being poured at family dinners, and they were aimed from the start at the bar trade rather than the household — bartenders, restaurateurs and gourmet grocers.

He died in 1944 and his son Paul took over within months, dropped wine production entirely and built a network of distributors across France. That decision made the company what it is. By the 1930s Monin was already a leading fruit syrup in France; the range now runs past 150 flavors.

The motto Georges left behind, La Passion de la Qualité, is still on the company's own account of itself. Bourges was not chosen at random either — it sits close to the fruit-growing country that supplied him.