Drinks manufacturers looking to cash in on La Belle Epoque’s most notorious trend sold cheaper, inferior versions of the drink to French alcoholics who couldn’t afford anything else. So is there anything in absinthe that might have caused its drinkers such a trip?īreaux reckons that absinthe was once again sabotaged by its own popularity. The highest thujone level was 48.3mg/L, an amount so small that before the thujone would have any effect, a person would need to consume so much absinthe they would be dead from alcohol poisoning. In 2008, he published research undertaken with German scientists that proved the levels of thujone in absinthe, both old and new, is much, much lower than the previously estimated level of 260mg/L. Ted Breaux is an American chemist raised in New Orleans, once known as the Absinthe Capital of the World, and the man to thank for the overturn of the ban in the US. The European ban remained until 1988 when absinthe was re-legalized effectively by accident after food regulations adopted by the EU neglected to mention the drink by name. The wine industry’s decades-long misinformation campaign cemented absinthe’s reputation as the root of all societal evils, and eventually it was banned in all Western European countries bar Spain, and the United States, by the end of World War One. Brandy was in scarce supply, and by the turn of the century, French consumption of absinthe was up to 36 million litres. The Great Wine Blight of the 1860s devastated France’s wine-grape harvest, when the Phylloxera aphid rampaged through France’s vineyards. Never mind that he had also consumed creme de menthe, cognac, seven glasses of wine, coffee with brandy, and a further litre of wine.īrandy producers also had no problem in harming their rivals’ reputations, pushing the image of absinthe as a green devil. It was a convenient scapegoat when in 1905, Swiss farmer Jean Lanfray downed two glasses and shot his pregnant wife and two daughters. Thujone hijacks the nervous system to causes convulsions when consumed in high doses, and was blamed for deliriums tremens by French psychiatrist Valentin Magnan, who injected mice with massive amounts of the chemical (we now know “the shakes” are caused by the biochemical effects of withdrawal from alcohol).ĭespite weak evidence, the idea that thujone made absinthe dangerous was seized upon by the powerful temperance movement, who touted absinthe as the scourge of the people of France, a drink that drove the poor to madness, and into the asylum. The compound fingered for such an effect was thujone found in grand wormwood, the main herb used in the maceration that forms absinthe’s base. In 1874, France consumed 700,000 litres of the stuff.Ībsinthe seemed to promise something more of a psychoactive experience than an equivalent beverage - brandy, perhaps. It was also popular with the working class. Absinthe, like much other alcohol, was an escape, a freedom from inhibitions, and for the impressionists, a portal to transcendence. The liquorice-tasting drink, a distillation of wormwood, anise, lemon balm and fennel, became popular among soldiers returning from war in the mid century, and then the young creatives of La Belle Epoque whose names will stand forever in cultural history: van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Rimbaud, Baudelard. It’s a myth that’s been perpetuated by misunderstanding, and blind repetition of propaganda, led by prohibitionists and other drinks manufacturers who sought to protect their own trade.Ībsinthe is a French spirit first manufactured near the French/Swiss border around the beginning of the 19th century when, as rumour has it, a Swiss apothecary sold the recipe for absinthe elixir to Henry-Louis Pernod. “Absinthe is not hallucinogenic, and there’s no evidence it ever was,” states Jenny Gardener of distribution company Sip or Mix, who supply absinthe and other spirits to the UK’s leading bars and drinks outlets. The potent green drink is as romantic as Romeo and Juliet - intrinsically linked with death, forbidden, and the fabled cause of delirious highs and terrifying hallucinations. A spirit so diverse it links Vincent van Gogh with Kylie Minogue, absinthe is inescapable in our culture.
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