59 Fun Facts About Absinthe

To which plant family does grand wormwood belong?

Asteraceae, the daisy family, includes the genus Artemisia, so grand wormwood is a relative of the sunflower, the chrysanthemum and tarragon.

What is absinthe's famous French nickname?

La fée verte, the green fairy, was the affectionate nickname for the emerald-coloured drink in 19th-century France; it is a spirit rather than a liqueur because it is not bottled with added sweetener.

What is the typical alcohol strength of absinthe?

45-74% ABV is the usual range for absinthe, well above most spirits, which is why it is traditionally diluted with iced water before drinking; a few modern bottlings approach 90%.

Absinthe was created in the late 18th century in which Swiss canton?

Neuchâtel is the canton containing Couvet and the Val-de-Travers, where the drink emerged around 1792 as a bitter medicinal elixir before crossing into neighbouring France.

Which sisters of Couvet sold the early recipe as a medicinal elixir?

The Henriods, sisters in Couvet, sold the bitter elixir as a cure-all; by some accounts they were distilling it before the village doctor usually credited with the recipe even arrived.

In which French town did Henry-Louis Pernod and Major Dubied open a second absinthe distillery in 1805?

Pontarlier, just across the French border in the Doubs, got the 1805 distillery after the 1797 Couvet works proved too small, and the town became the capital of absinthe production.

Absinthe surged in the 1840s after French troops in which colony got it as a malaria preventive?

Algeria: French soldiers campaigning there in the 1840s were issued absinthe to ward off malaria and dysentery, and they brought the taste home with them.

By the 1860s, 5 pm in French cafés had acquired what nickname?

L'heure verte, the green hour, was the name given to the 5 pm aperitif ritual by the 1860s, when cafés from the boulevards to the working districts filled with absinthe drinkers.

How many litres of absinthe were the French drinking per year by 1910?

36 million litres a year by 1910, up from about 700,000 litres in 1874, after 1880s mass production pushed the price below that of wine.

Which US city is credited as the birthplace of the Sazerac, perhaps the earliest absinthe cocktail?

New Orleans gave the world the Sazerac, a cognac and later rye cocktail served in an absinthe-rinsed glass, and its Old Absinthe House on Bourbon Street drew patrons such as Mark Twain and Frank Sinatra.

Which 1905 crime by a Swiss farmer became the tipping point for banning absinthe?

Jean Lanfray murdered his wife and children at Commugny in August 1905 after a day of heavy wine and brandy drinking, yet blame fell on his two glasses of absinthe, and 82,000 people signed a petition for a ban.

How was the 1908 Swiss prohibition of absinthe enacted?

The constitutional ban was repealed in 2000 and absinthe became legal again on 1 March 2005.

Which territory banned absinthe as early as 1898, before any European country?

The Congo Free State, Leopold II's personal colony, prohibited absinthe in 1898, well before the wave of European bans of the following two decades.

In which year did the United States ban absinthe?

1912: the US Department of Agriculture's Food Inspection Decision 147 banned absinthe that year, two years before France; the UK never formally banned it.

The French ban on absinthe led directly to the popularity of which anise-flavoured substitute?

Pastis, an aniseed-and-liquorice spirit containing no wormwood, filled the gap left by the French ban and, with Paul Ricard's 1932 version, became the national aperitif.

Which two countries never banned absinthe, so production there never ceased?

Spain and Portugal never outlawed the drink, so Iberian distilleries kept working through the ban years, and one famous French brand moved its production to Spain between the wars.

What did clandestine Swiss distillers call the colourless absinthe they made to hide it from authorities?

La Bleue, named for the faint blue tint the clear spirit takes when water is added, was distilled in secret in the Val-de-Travers during the ban, and the name later attached to Swiss-style clear absinthe generally.

Hill's Absinth, imported by BBH Spirits in the 1990s to spark the modern revival, came from where?

The Czech Republic: Hill's Liquere of Jindřichův Hradec made the Bohemian-style absinth that BBH Spirits began importing into Britain in 1998, where no ban had ever been enacted.

Which brand in 2000 became the first commercial spirit of its kind distilled in France since the 1914 ban?

La Fée, created in 2000 with the Musée de l'Absinthe in Auvers-sur-Oise, was the first absinthe commercially distilled in France since the ban, and dozens of French brands followed.

Which brand in 2007 became the first genuine absinthe approved for US import since the ban?

Lucid, distilled at the Combier distillery in Saumur for an American company, won federal approval in March 2007; St. George Spirits of California then made the first US-produced absinthe that December.

In which year did France finally repeal its absinthe ban?

2011: a law repealing the 1915 prohibition was published in May 2011 after a Senate vote that April, ending almost a century of a ban that a 1988 decree had only loosened.

Which Swiss village in the Val-de-Travers is home to the national Maison de l'Absinthe museum?

Môtiers, a few kilometres from Couvet, opened the Maison de l'Absinthe in 2014 in the former district courthouse where clandestine distillers had once been prosecuted.

Which country's law defines absinthe as a spirit that must be distilled?

Switzerland defined absinthe in law when its ban ended: the spirit must be distilled rather than cold-mixed and, if coloured, coloured naturally, whereas other markets set no quality standard for the name.

Traditional absinthe gets its green colour from what?

Chlorophyll from a second herb maceration: after distillation the clear spirit is steeped with a fresh charge of green herbs, whose chlorophyll lends the classic green, which is why traditional bottles were kept away from light.

Unscrupulous 19th-century makers tinted cheap absinthe green with what toxic substance?

Copper salts gave cheap absinthe an artificial green, and some makers added antimony trichloride to thicken the cloud that forms when water is added, which may explain much of the drink's toxic reputation.

What is the milky opalescence that forms when water is added to absinthe called?

The louche is the cloudy opalescence produced as water drops the alcohol strength and the essential oils of the botanicals, insoluble in weak alcohol, come out of solution.

In the traditional French preparation, what sits on the slotted spoon over the glass?

A sugar cube rests on the perforated spoon while iced water drips through it, sweetening the drink and dissolving into the glass as it clouds; the ritual developed in 19th-century cafés.

In the French method, roughly how much iced water is dripped in?

3-5 parts to 1 of spirit is the classic dilution, bringing a 68% absinthe down to roughly the strength of wine and letting the cloud develop slowly; patrons mixed their own at the café table.

The 'Bohemian method' of serving absinthe involves what?

Setting a sugar cube alight: the absinthe-soaked cube burns on the spoon before water is added, a 1990s marketing invention that connoisseurs dismiss as a fire-hazard gimmick that scorches the spirit.

What was an absinthe fountain?

An iced-water jar with spigots for several drinks, usually four, let a table of patrons drip water into their glasses at once without anyone holding a carafe.

Ernest Hemingway's absinthe cocktail 'Death in the Afternoon' tops a jigger of absinthe with what?

Iced Champagne is poured over a jigger of absinthe until, in Hemingway's 1935 recipe, it 'attains the proper opalescent milkiness'; his instructions add: 'Drink three to five of these slowly.'

What is a colourless absinthe bottled straight after distillation called?

A blanche is bottled clear, straight after distillation, skipping the colouring step that gives a green absinthe its colour; rouge absinthes get their tint from hibiscus or rose petals.

What was naturally coloured absinthe that had oxidised to brown historically called?

Feuille morte (dead leaf) described the amber-brown that a naturally coloured absinthe took on as its plant pigment oxidised; pre-ban drinkers welcomed it as proof the green had been natural.

Why should absinthe not be stored in the fridge or freezer?

Anethole may polymerise into a precipitate at low temperature, an irreversible cloudiness in the bottle, so absinthe is best kept cool, dry and out of the light, in dark glass if naturally coloured.

Which chemical in wormwood was long blamed for absinthe's supposed hallucinogenic effects?

Thujone, a GABA-A receptor antagonist that can cause muscle spasms in large doses, was blamed for absinthe's reputation, but there is no evidence it causes hallucinations at the levels found in the drink.

A 1970s scientific paper revived absinthe's mind-altering reputation by likening wormwood's key compound to what?

THC, the active chemical in cannabis, was proposed in a 1975 Nature paper as a molecular cousin of the wormwood compound; the theory was later discredited, and a drinker would die of alcohol poisoning first.

What maximum level of wormwood's key compound does the EU allow in drinks listing Artemisia?

35 mg/kg is the EU ceiling for the compound in alcoholic drinks made with Artemisia species, a limit set in 1988 and carried into the 2008 flavourings regulation; analyses of pre-ban bottles found most within it.

Which French psychiatrist's wormwood-oil experiments underpinned the belief that absinthe caused hallucinations?

Valentin Magnan, chief physician at the Sainte-Anne asylum in Paris, exposed animals to wormwood oil in the 1860s and 1870s, recorded convulsions, and declared absinthism a distinct disease with hallucinations among its symptoms.

Which writer, drunk on absinthe, felt phantom tulips brushing his legs on leaving a bar?

Oscar Wilde told of leaving a bar at dawn feeling tulips brushing his shins, although the waiter saw nothing; the anecdote is among the most quoted of absinthe's supposed visions.

Whose 1876 painting L'Absinthe, showing a sodden café drinker, hangs in the Musée d'Orsay?

Edgar Degas painted L'Absinthe in 1875-76, posing the actress Ellen Andrée and the engraver Marcellin Desboutin at the Café de la Nouvelle Athènes; it hangs in the Musée d'Orsay.

Whose first major painting, The Absinthe Drinker, was rejected by the Paris Salon in 1859?

Édouard Manet's The Absinthe Drinker (1859), a full-length portrait of the rag-picker Collardet, was turned down by the Salon jury, with only Delacroix voting to accept it.

Absinthe's name traces through Latin absinthium to which Greek word?

Some claim it means 'undrinkable'; others link it to a Persian root.

Wormwood's medical use is recorded as far back as which ancient Egyptian medical text of around 1550 BC?

The Ebers Papyrus, a 110-column scroll of remedies from about 1550 BC, lists wormwood among its ingredients; the Greeks later drank a wormwood wine called absinthites oinos.

Bohemian-style 'absinth' differs from traditional absinthe chiefly in lacking what?

Anise and fennel, the two botanicals that give true absinthe its flavour and its cloud with water, are largely absent, leaving a wormwood bitters that stays clear when diluted.

About how many absinthe brands were in production across a dozen countries by the early 21st century?

Nearly 200 brands were being made in about a dozen countries by the end of the 2000s, most of them in the drink's historic heartlands and in central Europe, as the revival spread after the legal changes.

In the Book of Revelation, a star named Wormwood falls to earth and does what?

Turns a third of the waters bitter: in Revelation 8:10-11 the star called Wormwood falls on rivers and springs, 'and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter'.

Paul Ricard founded his anise-drink company in 1932 in which French city?

Marseille was where Paul Ricard launched his aniseed aperitif in 1932, selling it as the true drink of his home city; his firm merged with its great rival in 1975 to form one of the world's largest spirits groups.

Which French physician is credited with creating absinthe in Couvet, Switzerland, around 1792?

Pierre Ordinaire, a French doctor who had settled in Couvet, is traditionally credited with the recipe, though some accounts say local distillers were making the elixir before he arrived.

Under what company name did the second absinthe distillery, opened in France in 1805, operate?

Maison Pernod Fils was the name of the 1805 works, which stayed among the most popular brands until the French ban and later revived production for a time abroad.

Which Spanish region hosted the revived production of France's best-known absinthe brand after 1918?

Catalonia: the brand set up a distillery at Tarragona in 1918 and kept making absinthe there until falling sales closed the plant in the 1960s.

Which two countries banned the sale of absinthe in 1906?

Belgium and Brazil both outlawed the sale of absinthe in 1906, within a year of the Swiss murder case that galvanised prohibitionists, ahead of the Dutch, Swiss, American and French bans of the following eight years.

In which year did Belgium lift its long-standing ban on absinthe, citing EU single-market rules?

2005: Belgium's ban fell on 1 January that year as incompatible with EU single-market rules, a few months after an Amsterdam wine merchant had won a court case against the Dutch restrictions.

Which US agency effectively lifted the American absinthe ban in 2007?

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau approved the first absinthe labels in March 2007, treating products with only trace levels of the wormwood compound as free of it, ending a ban from before the First World War.

Which body petitioned for the repeal of France's century-old absinthe ban?

The Fédération Française des Spiritueux, the spirits producers' trade body, petitioned for the repeal, and the French Senate voted that April to overturn the 1915 prohibition.

How did French producers sidestep a 1988 decree that still banned the label 'absinthe'?

By calling it 'wormwood-based spirits', in French 'spiritueux à base de plantes d'absinthe', producers stayed inside the decree, which had also capped two other herb-derived compounds, fenchone and pinocamphone.

Besides petite wormwood, which two herbs are typically steeped in the distillate for colour?

Hyssop and melissa (lemon balm), steeped with petite wormwood in the clear distillate, release the green pigment that colours the finished spirit; angelica, peppermint and veronica are sometimes added as well.

Which entrepreneur brought absinthe to Brazil when it was legalised there in 1999?

Lalo Zanini, a businessman, introduced absinthe to the Brazilian market when the country lifted its ban in 1999, after more than ninety years of prohibition.

Which British Columbia craft distillery made Canada's first genuine absinthe, Taboo, in 2007?

Okanagan Spirits, a craft distillery in Vernon, British Columbia, released Taboo in 2007 as the first genuine absinthe made in Canada, where provincial liquor boards rather than federal law govern sales.

Which French poet, a notorious absinthe drinker, shot Arthur Rimbaud in Brussels in 1873?

Paul Verlaine, whose absinthe habit wrecked his health, shot Rimbaud in the wrist in a Brussels hotel room in July 1873 and served two years in prison for it.