Absinthe (English pronunciation: /ˈæbsɪnθ/) is historically described as a distilled, highly alcoholic (45–74% ABV) beverage. It is an anise-flavored spirit derived from herbs, including the flowers and leaves of the herb Artemisia absinthium, commonly referred to as "grande wormwood". Absinthe traditionally has a natural green color but can also be colorless. It is commonly referred to in historical literature as "la fée verte" (the Green Fairy).
Although it is sometimes mistakenly called a liqueur, absinthe is not bottled with added sugar and is therefore classified as a spirit. Absinthe is unusual among spirits in that it is bottled at a very high proof but is normally diluted with water when consumed.
Absinthe originated in the canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. It achieved great popularity as an alcoholic drink in late 19th- and early 20th-century France, particularly among Parisian artists and writers. Owing in part to its association with bohemian culture, absinthe was opposed by social conservatives and prohibitionists. Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Amedeo Modigliani, Vincent van Gogh, Oscar Wilde, Aleister Crowley, and Alfred Jarry were all notorious "bad men" of that day who were (or were thought to be) devotees of the Green Fairy.
Absinthe has been portrayed as a dangerously addictive psychoactive drug. The chemical thujone, present in small quantities, was blamed for its alleged harmful effects. By 1915, absinthe had been banned in the United States and in most European countries including France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although absinthe was vilified, no evidence has shown that it is any more dangerous than ordinary spirits. Its psychoactive properties, apart from those of alcohol, have been much exaggerated.
A revival of absinthe began in the 1990s, when countries in the European Union began to reauthorize its manufacture and sale. As of February 2008, nearly 200 brands of absinthe were being produced in a dozen countries, most notably in France, Switzerland, Spain, and the Czech Republic.
Look up absinthe in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
The French word absinthe can refer either to the alcoholic beverage or, less commonly, to the actual wormwood plant (grande absinthe being Artemisia absinthium, and petite absinthe being Artemisia pontica). The Latin name artemisia comes from Artemis, the ancient Greek goddess of the hunt. Absinthe is derived from the Latin absinthium, which in turn is a stylization of the Greek αψίνθιον (apsínthion), for wormwood. The use of Artemisia absinthium in a drinking is attested in Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura (I 936–950), where Lucretius indicates that a drink containing wormwood is given as medicine to children in a cup with honey on the brim to make it drinkable. This was a metaphor for the presentation of complexity ideas in poetic forming.
Some claim that the word means "undrinkable" in Greek, but it may instead be linked to the Persian root spand or aspand, or the variant esfand, which meant Peganum harmala, also called Syrian Rue — although it is not actually a variety of rue, another famously bitter herb. That Artemisia absinthium was commonly burned as a protective offering may suggest that its origins lie in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European root *spend, meaning "to perform a ritual" or "make an offering." Whether the word was a borrowing from Persian into Greek, or from a common ancestor of both, is unclear. Variant spellings of absinthe are absinth, absynthe, and absenta. In English it is pronounced /ˈæbsɪnθ/ (
listen); in French, [absɛ̃t]. Absinth (without the final e) is a spelling variant used by central European distillers. It is the usual name for absinthe produced in the Czech Republic and in Germany, and has become associated with Bohemian style absinthes.
The precise origin of absinthe is unclear. The medical use of wormwood dates back to ancient Egypt and is mentioned in the Ebers Papyrus, circa 1550 BC. Wormwood extracts and wine-soaked wormwood leaves were used as remedies by the ancient Greeks. Moreover, there is evidence of the existence of a wormwood-flavored wine, absinthites oinos, in ancient Greece.
The first clear evidence of absinthe in the modern sense of a distilled spirit containing green anise and fennel, however, dates to the 18th century. According to popular legend, absinthe began as an all-purpose patent remedy created by Dr. Pierre Ordinaire, a French doctor living in Couvet, Switzerland, around 1792 (the exact date varies by account). Ordinaire’s recipe was passed on to the Henriod sisters of Couvet, who sold absinthe as a medicinal elixir. By other accounts, the Henriod sisters may have been making the elixir before Ordinaire’s arrival. In either case, a certain Major Dubied acquired the formula from the sisters and in 1797, with his son Marcellin and son-in-law Henry-Louis Pernod, opened the first absinthe distillery, Dubied Père et Fils, in Couvet. In 1805 they built a second distillery in Pontarlier, France, under the new company name Maison Pernod Fils. Pernod Fils remained one of the most popular brands of absinthe up until the ban of the drink in France in 1914.
Absinthe’s popularity grew steadily through the 1840s, when absinthe was given to French troops as a malaria treatment. When the troops returned home, they brought their taste for absinthe with them. It became so popular in bars, bistros, cafés, and cabarets that, by the 1860s, the hour of 5 p.m. was called l’heure verte ("the green hour"). Absinthe was favored by all social classes, from the wealthy bourgeoisie to poor artists and ordinary working-class people. By the 1880s, mass production had caused the price of absinthe to drop sharply. By 1910, the French were drinking 36 million litres of absinthe per year (compared to their consumption of almost 5 billion litres of wine).
Absinthe has been popular outside of France, including Spain, New Orleans and the Czech Republic. Absinthe was never banned in Spain or Portugal, and its production and consumption has never ceased. During the early 20th century it gained a temporary spike in popularity corresponding with the French influenced Art Nouveau and Modernism aesthetic movements.
New Orleans also has a historical connection to absinthe consumption. The city has a prominent landmark called the Old Absinthe House, located on Bourbon Street. Originally called the Absinthe Room, it was opened in 1874 by a Catalan bartender named Cayetano Ferrer. The building was frequented by many famous people, including Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Franklin Roosevelt, Aleister Crowley and Frank Sinatra.
Absinthe has been consumed in the Czech Republic (then part of Austria–Hungary) since at least 1888, notably by Czech artists, some of whom had an affinity for Paris, frequenting Prague’s famous Cafe Slavia. Its wider appeal in Bohemia itself is uncertain, though it was sold in and around Prague. There is evidence that at least one local liquor distillery in Bohemia was making absinthe at the turn of the 20th century.
Spurred by the temperance movement and the winemakers’ associations, absinthe was publicly associated with violent crimes and social disorder.
A critic said that:
“ Absinthe makes you crazy and criminal, provokes epilepsy and tuberculosis, and has killed thousands of French people. It makes a ferocious beast of man, a martyr of woman, and a degenerate of the infant, it disorganizes and ruins the family and menaces the future of the country. ”Edgar Degas’ 1876 painting L’Absinthe, which can be seen at the Musée d’Orsay, epitomized the popular view of absinthe addicts as sodden and benumbed. Although Émile Zola mentioned absinthe only once by name, he described its effects in his novel L’Assommoir:
“ Boche had known a joiner who had stripped himself stark naked in the rue Saint-Martin and died doing the polka—he was an absinthe-drinker. ”
In 1905, it was reported that Jean Lanfray murdered his family and tried to kill himself after drinking absinthe. The fact that Lanfray was an alcoholic who had consumed much more than his usual two glasses of absinthe in the morning was either overlooked or ignored; the murders were blamed solely on absinthe. The murders were the last straw, and a petition to ban absinthe in Switzerland was signed by more than 82,000 people. The prohibition of absinthe was then written into the Swiss constitution in 1907.
In 1906, Belgium and Brazil banned the sale and distribution of absinthe, although they were not the first. Absinthe had been banned as early as 1898 in the colony of the Congo Free State. The Netherlands banned absinthe in 1909; Switzerland in 1910; the United States in 1912, and France in 1914.
The prohibition of absinthe in France led to increased popularity of pastis (and of ouzo, to a lesser extent), anise-flavoured spirits that do not contain wormwood. The Pernod brand resumed production at the Banus distillery in Catalonia, Spain, where absinthe was still legal, but slow sales in the 1960s eventually caused them to shut it down. In Switzerland, the ban drove absinthe underground. Clandestine home distillers produced absinthe, focusing on la Bleue, which was easier to conceal from the authorities. Many countries never banned absinthe, notably Britain, where it had not been as popular as in continental Europe.
In the 1990s an importer, BBH Spirits, realized that there was no UK law prohibiting the sale of absinthe, as it had never been banned there. They began to import Hill’s Absinth (not a true Absinthe) from the Czech Republic, which encouraged a modern resurgence in absinthe’s popularity. Absinthe had also never been banned in other European countries where it was never popular. As a result, it is in these countries where absinthe first began to reappear during the revival in the 1990s. These absinthes—mostly Czech, Spanish, and Portuguese brands—are generally of recent origin, typically consist of Bohemian-style products, and are therefore considered by absinthe connoisseurs to be of inferior quality.
La Fée Absinthe, released in 2000, was the first brand labelled absinthe distilled and bottled in France since the 1914 ban, initially for export from France, but now one of roughly 50 French-produced absinthes available in France. French absinthes now must be labelled as boissons spiritueuse aux plantes d'absinthe to be sold within that country per the most recent guidelines. Absinthes produced in other countries must be relabelled to meet these same guidelines to be legally imported and sold within France.