Absinthe Trivia
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55 free Absinthe trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This absinthe trivia quiz covers the green fairy from its birth as a Swiss patent remedy to its 21st-century revival. The easy questions are the ones any cocktail fan should get: what colour it traditionally is, the plant that defines it, its French nickname, and the milky cloud that forms when you add water. Then it gets more demanding: Dr Ordinaire and the Henriod sisters of Couvet, the Pernod distillery at Pontarlier, the French troops in Algeria, the green hour of Paris cafés, the 36 million litres France drank in 1910, the Lanfray murders and the Swiss referendum, the countries that banned it and the ones that never did, the copper salts and antimony that made cheap absinthe genuinely poisonous, thujone and the THC myth, the EU limit, the Bohemian fire ritual, Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon, Degas and Manet, and the year France finally repealed its ban. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on absinthe, thujone, wormwood and Pernod Ricard before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our cocktails, beverages and Paris quizzes next.
30 of 55 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Grand wormwood, absinthe's signature herb and a cousin of the chrysanthemum, belongs to which plant family?
The daisy family
The daisy family, Asteraceae, takes in wormwood's genus Artemisia along with tarragon; long before absinthe, Hippocrates prescribed the herb for menstrual pain and rheumatism.
Q 02What is absinthe's famous French nickname?
La fée verte
La fée verte, 'the green fairy', was hailed by her devotees as a muse who freed the imagination, and Belle Époque poets and painters dedicated works to her.
Q 03Pre-ban absinthe, a famously strong spirit, was sold in grades topped by Suisse that were set chiefly by what?
Alcohol content
Alcohol content set the grades, from about 45% ABV at the bottom to about 70% for Suisse, a name that promised the top grade, not a Swiss origin.
Q 04Absinthe was created in the late 18th century in which Swiss canton?
Neuchâtel
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.
Q 05In which Shakespeare play does a nurse recall weaning a child by rubbing wormwood on her breast?
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet: the Nurse recalls that she 'laid wormwood to my dug' to wean Juliet, who tasted it and fell out with the breast, a weaning trick mothers really used.
Q 06In which French town did one of absinthe's first distillers set up a new distillery in 1805?
Pontarlier
Pontarlier, just across the border in the Doubs, got the 1805 distillery so its founder could serve the French market directly, and the town grew into the capital of absinthe production.
Q 07Absinthe surged in the 1840s after French troops in which colony got it as a malaria preventive?
Algeria
Algeria: troops there took wormwood against fever and dysentery, and on returning home they kept asking cafés for the drink, which made absinthe fashionable well beyond the army.
Q 08By the 1860s, absinthe was so popular that 5 pm in French cafés acquired what nickname?
L'heure verte
L'heure verte, 'the green hour', was named for the colour of the absinthe that filled café tables at the end of the working day, in grand boulevards and working-class bars alike.
Q 09Absinthe boomed in France after which insect laid waste to the country's vineyards?
Phylloxera
Phylloxera, an aphid carried over from North America, wrecked French vineyards in the later 19th century; as their usual drink ran short, people turned to cheap absinthe, downing about 36 million litres a year by 1910.
Q 10Which US city is credited as the birthplace of the Sazerac, perhaps the earliest absinthe cocktail?
New Orleans
New Orleans gave the world the Sazerac, stirred in a glass rinsed with absinthe; after the US ban of 1912 its bartenders switched to Herbsaint, a local substitute launched in 1934.
Q 11What did the labourer Jean Lanfray do in Switzerland in 1905 that tipped the argument for banning absinthe?
Murdered his family
Murdered his family: Lanfray shot his pregnant wife and two daughters after a day of heavy drinking, mostly of other things, yet blame fell on his two glasses of absinthe, and 82,000 people signed a petition for a ban.
Q 12How was the 1908 Swiss prohibition of absinthe enacted?
By referendum, written into the constitution
By referendum, written into the constitution: 63.5% of voters backed a popular initiative in July 1908, and the ban stayed in the constitution until a new one took force in 2000.
Q 13Which territory banned absinthe as early as 1898, before any European country?
Q 21Switzerland's national absinthe museum, the Maison de l'Absinthe in Môtiers, occupies what kind of former building?
A courthouse
A courthouse: the museum, opened in 2014, sits in the very building where clandestine distillers were once prosecuted for making the banned spirit.
Q 22Chemists name the sudden clouding of absinthe in water after which Greek spirit?
Ouzo
Ouzo clouds the same way, so chemists call it the ouzo effect: the drink's essential oils dissolve in strong alcohol but not in water, and adding water forces them out as countless tiny droplets.
Q 23Traditional absinthe gets its green colour from what?
Chlorophyll from a second herb maceration
The Congo Free State
The Congo Free State, then the private domain of Belgium's King Leopold II, banned absinthe in 1898, and within a decade Belgium itself became the first European country to follow.
Q 14Which US government department banned absinthe in 1912 under the pure-food law it enforced?
The Department of Agriculture
The Department of Agriculture, which then policed food purity, banned absinthe in July 1912, eight years before Prohibition; the ban outlived Prohibition and stood until 2007.
Q 15The French ban on absinthe led directly to the popularity of which anise-flavoured substitute?
Pastis
Pastis kept absinthe's anise flavour but left out the banned wormwood, so it could be sold legally once France eased its rules, and Paul Ricard launched his brand in 1932.
Q 16Which two neighbouring countries never banned absinthe, so their distilleries never stopped making it?
Spain and Portugal
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.
Q 17What did clandestine Swiss distillers call the colourless absinthe they made to hide it from authorities?
La Bleue
La Bleue, said to be named for the bluish tinge the clear spirit shows as water is added, was distilled in secret in the Val-de-Travers, and the name now covers Swiss-style clear absinthe generally.
Q 18Hill's Absinth, imported by BBH Spirits in the 1990s to spark the modern revival, came from where?
The Czech Republic
The Czech Republic: Hill's made the absinth, spelled without the final e, whose exports in the 1990s revived the drink's fame and drew dozens of copycat brands in their wake.
Q 19Which brand in 2007 became the first genuine absinthe approved for US import since the ban?
Lucid
Lucid, made in France for an American firm, won approval in March 2007 once its makers showed that traditionally distilled absinthe carries only a trace of the feared wormwood compound.
Q 20France banned absinthe during which war, amid fears that the drink was weakening its army?
The First World War
The First World War had just begun when France moved against absinthe, and a law of March 1915 banned it outright; that law stayed on the books until 2011.
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.
Q 24Unscrupulous 19th-century makers tinted cheap absinthe green with what toxic substance?
Copper salts
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.
Q 25What is the milky opalescence that forms when water is added to absinthe called?
The louche
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.
Q 26In the traditional French way of serving absinthe, what sits on the slotted spoon over the glass?
A sugar cube
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.
Q 27Three to five parts of iced water bring a 68% ABV absinthe down to about the strength of which drink?
Wine
Wine: four parts of water take a 68% absinthe to under 14% ABV, so the notorious spirit was actually sipped at roughly the strength of a table wine.
Q 28The modern 'Bohemian method' of serving absinthe adds what to the ritual?
A flame
A flame: the drink is set alight before the water goes in, a ritual unknown in the Belle Époque that producers devised in the 1990s to make their brands more eye-catching.
Q 29What was an absinthe fountain?
An iced-water jar with spigots for several drinks
An iced-water jar with spigots for several drinks let a whole table drip water into their glasses at once, with no need for the steady hand that pouring from a carafe demanded.
Q 30Ernest Hemingway's absinthe cocktail 'Death in the Afternoon' tops a jigger of absinthe with what?
Iced Champagne
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.'