A flute-shaped glass with graceful indentations is set onto the table. The barmaid pours a small amount of absinthe into the glass, where it sparkles in the candlelight like emeralds. Next to it, she places a carafe of water and a small plate holding a flat silver spoon and a lump of sugar. The customer reverently lays the spoon across the rim of the glass with the sugar cube on top of it. He picks up the carafe and slowly, drop by drop, trickles the water onto the sugar. Soft lumps of the sweet crystals drip into the potation below, waiting for its magical transformation. The patron drinks the liquid gem down and begins his descent.

This would likely have been the scene unfolding before you if you had entered a café in fin de siècle Paris. It was a scene that would become as common as that of men heading to work and mothers tucking their children into bed.

Just the name absinthe evokes images of Belle Époque Paris, of artists getting stoned in cafés, and the Beautiful People socializing at the Moulin Rouge. Absinthe’s history is rich with lore and legends, mystery and horror, medical praise and scientific damnation, and it bewitched turn-of-the-century society.

The word absinthe comes from the Greek apsinthion, meaning “bitter” or “undrinkable,” describing its main ingredient, grand wormwood. Related to the daisy family, wormwood was utilized throughout history as a medicinal herb. It was given as a stimulant and antiseptic, and was used to treat fevers, menstrual pain, anemia, gout, epilepsy, kidney stones, colic, headaches, rheumatism, jaundice, and to aid in childbirth. It was also prescribed to get rid of intestinal worms, hence its name. It was mentioned in ancient texts, such as the Bible, the Ebers Papyrus, and the writings of Pythagoras and Hippocrates. The ancient Greeks mixed it with wine and gave it to Olympic athletes, which was meant to keep the bitterness of defeat fresh in their minds and encourage them to win.

            Absinthe was created by French doctor Pierre Ordinaire in 1792 as an elixir for his patients. In 1797, Major Dubied bought the formula and set up an absinthe factory with his son-in-law, Henri-Louis Pernod. In 1805, Pernod founded the Pernod Fils company, one of the most successful companies in France and the most well-known absinthe producer in the world.

From 1844 to 1847, French troops fighting in Algeria, known as the Bataillon d’Afrique, used “absinthe soup”—absinthe mixed with wine or water—as a cure for dysentery. When they returned to France, they continued drinking the concoction for pleasure. Around the same time, a type of plant lice (phyllexora) attacked and destroyed much of the vineyards throughout France, resulting in a shortage of wine. The popularity of absinthe soared.

Enter the Green Muse

Absinthe spawned its own world, one in which its drinkers spoke a secret language and with a wink-wink understood each other perfectly. When ordering a drink, it was understood that the question “With or without?” meant with or without a shot of absinthe. A special spoon was created just for absinthe drinking. This spoon was flat, rather like a miniature cake cutter, and came in many designs. Most importantly, it was perforated. One or two sugar cubes were placed on the spoon and water was slowly poured onto the sugar, which dripped through the holes and into the absinthe. The color transformation was called louching and it turned the absinthe a milky, opalescent white. (In 1901, a fire destroyed much of the Pernod factory, sending million of liters of absinthe into the Doubs River. It is said that the river turned to cloudy milk for miles downstream.) It was this mysterious ritual that intrigued and mesmerized the masses.

It can be said that “happy hour” began because of absinthe. In the 1860s, cafés and cabarets became the popular place to congregate. Five p.m. became known as l’heure verte, or the “green hour,” when the hard-working people of Paris gathered to have their favorite aperitif. It was also believed to be an appetite enhancer, and thus began the aperitif tradition. Regular drinkers of absinthe became known as absintheurs.

This new café/cabaret culture inspired artists (including writers) to socialize in public and be “seen.” As absinthe grew in popularity, so did production, resulting in a drop in price; by the 1880s, absinthe was the cheapest way to get high, perfect for starving artists. And because of its supposed mind-altering properties, it called to artists like a Siren’s song. The way musicians and artists in the 1960s looked to LSD for inspiration, so did artists of the late 1800s look to absinthe. It came to be known as La Fée Verte, or the Green Fairy. Other names were Green Goddess, Green Muse, and Opaline Muse.

Artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde, and Edgar Allen Poe worshiped absinthe. Some featured it in their works: Degas had L’Absinthe; Manet had The Absinthe Drinker; Picasso had Bottle of Pernod and Glass. Van Gogh created Still Life with Absinthe and often painted in shades of green. Later, Pablo Picasso became a fan and Ernest Hemingway mentioned it in For Whom the Bell Tolls. Writer and occultist Aleister Crowley wrote:

A single glass seems to render the breathing freer, the spirit lighter, the heart more ardent, soul and mind alike more capable […] So may he come victorious from the battle of life to be received with tender kisses by some green-robed archangel, and crowned with mystic vervain in the Emerald Gateway of the Golden City of God.

The Green Fairy Becomes A Lady of Ill Repute

Absinthe became part of the subculture. With its strange coloration, rituals, paraphernalia and lingo, absinthe frightened conventional 19^th-century society. Absinthe came to symbolize anarchy, debauchery, vice, and the abandonment of all things decent.

The peculiar behavior of those “crazy artists” gave rise to the notion that the Muse induced madness. For example, writer Alfred Jarry rode around Paris on his bicycle with his face and hands painted green, purportedly in homage to absinthe. Poet Paul Verlaine attacked his mother one day during an “absinthe fit” and destroyed all the jars of her miscarried fetuses. Artists themselves depicted absinthe drinkers as spaced out or hallucinatory. Viktor Oliva, an early 20^th-century artist painted Absinthe Drinker, wherein the male subject is sitting in a café with his absinthe in front of him; sitting on the table is a green specter of a woman, much like a fairy. British novelist Marie Corelli wrote a book in 1890 called Wormwood—A Drama of Paris, which portrayed the rise of absinthe lovers, the fall of absinthe junkies, and the resultant degradation of Paris.

When many of these artists went mad, it was blamed on the absinthe. Verlaine stated in his confession:

“...later on I shall have to relate many [...] absurdities which I owe to my abuse of this horrible drink: this drink, this abuse itself, the source of folly and crime, of idiocy and shame, which governments should tax heavily if they do not suppress it altogether: Absinthe!”

This was also the first alcoholic beverage deliberately targeted towards women. No longer keeping to their place in the home, women began partaking in public. Men grew uncomfortable with this, furthering the notion that the Green Fairy led people astray. Conventional society began to grumble. Chronic use of absinthe was given a label: absinthism. The symptoms were noted as epileptic fits, hallucinations, fainting, and violent outbursts.

Then two events occurred that would make absinthe infamous. The first was in Vaud, Switzerland. On August 28, 1905, Jean Lanfray shot and murdered his wife and child. He had been drinking absinthe…and crème de menthe, cognac, brandy, and a couple liters of wine. Despite the variety of alcohol he consumed, this event came to be known as the “absinthe murders.” Soon after, in Geneva, a man brutally killed his wife with a gun and hatchet. He too had been drinking absinthe. This was the nail in the coffin. Temperance groups worldwide began crusading against alcohol. A 1907 petition by one of these groups stated that “Absinthe makes you crazy and criminal […] 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.”

            French Chamber of Deputies member Henri Schmidt said, “The real characteristic of absinthe is that it leads straight to the madhouse or the courthouse. It is truly ‘madness in a bottle’ and no habitual drinker can claim that he will not become a criminal.” Although the target for prohibitionists was alcohol in general, absinthe was the scapegoat. They set in motion an anti-absinthe movement by publishing articles and putting up posters. One such poster read Absinthe c’est la Mort (Absinthe is Death). The cause of all the trouble was believed to be wormwood’s active ingredient, thujone. In concentrated doses, thujone caused convulsions in lab rats; in reality, the amount of thujone in absinthe was too low to cause any harm.

Obvious explanations were overlooked. The strength of absinthe was 55%-2% alcohol, or 110-114 proof—much higher than most alcoholic beverages. So the drinker was slammed hard and fast. Classic absinthe was made by macerating herbs in a base alcohol, distilling the liquid, and gently heating a second pass of an herbal infusion, causing it to turn green. However, high demand led to inferior versions. Manufacturers adulterated the formula with substances such as copper sulphate, which could also account for the adverse effects experienced.

The prohibitionists won. Absinthe was banned in the U.S in 1912 and in France in 1915, followed by countries worldwide.

The Allure of La Fee Verte Lives On

In 1920, Pernod Fils began production of what is now known as pastis, an absinthe substitute. Real absinthe had an herbal flavor; pastis is anise flavored and contains other herbs and spices not used in traditional absinthe. Today’s Pernod has an alcohol content of 40%, or 80 proof, considerably lower than the original. In 1975, Pernod and Ricard merged to form Pernod Ricard, the leading manufacturer of pastis.

The absinthe ban has been lifted in some countries, such as the Netherlands and Belgium, provided that the thujone level conforms to European Union law. Absinthe was never banned in the U.K., Spain or Portugal and due to a resurgence in the 1990s, it is currently being produced in Czechoslovakia (although the quality of Czech absinthe has been called into question by aficionados). A new, more dramatic “tradition” emerged: A cube of sugar is placed on a spoon, dipped into absinthe, set on fire, allowed to caramelize, and is plunged into the absinthe. The absinthe is flambéed and then doused with cold water. Absinthe is becoming the hip drink among indie bands and absinthe kits are now available. Absinthe spoons are collectors’ items, as are absinthe glasses, carafes, fountains, and other paraphernalia. Incidentally, there has never been a ban on other alcoholic beverages containing wormwood. The best example is vermouth (the word vermouth comes from the German word for wormwood: wermut). Wormwood continues to be used today in pharmaceutical products.

Despite its tarnished reputation, absinthe remains romantic and mysterious and intrigues those seeking an “authentic” drink experience. During the peak of its popularity, it provided a clandestine allure for an otherwise oppressed society. Marie Corelli wrote a line in Wormwood—A Drama of Paris that pretty much sums up the feeling of most absintheurs of her day:

There, beside you, you have the most marvelous cordial in all the world—drink and you will find your sorrows transmuted—yourself transformed! […] Life without absinthe!—I cannot imagine it. […] Let me be made with the madness of absinthe, the wildest, most luxurious madness in the world.”