History of Absinthe

The cradle of absinth is the Swiss town of Couvet in the Travers Valley. In the second half of 18th century it would be prepared there as a local herbal speciality. If it had not been for the Napoleonean wars, perhaps, it would have never spread in the way known from the literature. Probably it would be merely an attraction for tourists - connected with nothing sensational ... The entire war history of mankind is, in fact, nothing but a show of various "stimulants", ceremonies and doping increasing the courage and strength of wariors. No matter where you look, you can find the same thing there: wild wariors of the "Old Man from the Mountain" - assassins, according to a legend a doped rabble that used to win every conflict, the American army in Vietnam that did not make a single step without marihuana (and it would have won if it had not been for the jungle and high natality of the enemy). And the Napoleon´s men whose obligation was to carry a bottle of absinth with them during their long war campaigns. You may ask why just absinth. The answer is not easy: one reason was the concentration of alcohol which is very advantageous during the transport, another one is represented by certain effects of absinth upon the human organism. According to eye-witnesses a soldier braced up with absinth lost fear of death and willingly went even into the fiercest battle din. The coordination of such a soldier´s movements (i.e. his pernicious forces) did not become weaker: rather on the contrary. What more could Napoleon have wished? Having connected the unbridled courage of his men with his strategic abilities as well as with those of his generals, no wonder that he was winning everywhere for such long period. There still remains a question here, namely concerning the share of the power of absinth participating in his success.

At the turn of the centuries absinth had no competitor in a certain respect. The production technology was almost arbitrary and thus, the price could be arbitrary as well, advantageous for all.

The French soldiers spread absinth throughout the whole Europe. Even to Russia, however, there, it was not able to support them, for their adversary was not a human being, but winter, hunger and long distances. Under such circumstances their "fury inside the heart" was no good. The furious soldier froze and marched himself to death. There are not many funny things to tell about the Russian campaign (everything has been told by Woody Allen in one of his films, anyway). The French Anabasis had no effect and absinth did not find many fans in the nation of Dostoevski, Tolsty and Lenin. However, everywhere else it did. In Bohemia, Austria, Germany, everywhere, it was gaining more and more keen consumers. Thanks to huge waves of migration it subdued Northern America as well. In some countries absinth literally infested the market. In its historical form absinth was relatively addictive - however, what is not addictive in this world? Thanks to its characteristic aroma it was easy to be produced even from low-quality raw materials, which reduced its price. "Even if absinth were sold for ten sous, it still would be cheaper than any food", says a cartoon coming from the turn of the centuries. The poor quality of beverages brought about its results, of course. In France started to spread the so called absinthism, a disease of keen drinkers, having similar symptoms like alcoholism: tremor, itching, spasms, confused thinking, decline of intelligence, insomnia, horrible hallucinations and epileptic seizures.

The above-described situation was a real disaster for the competitors - producers of other alcoholic bevarages. The French vintners were lamenting: "Worker of Paris, what, for goodness´ sake, do you swallow?" The English producers of whisky were chewing their cigars, full of anger. Then, respectable anti-alcohol leagues entered the scene, pointing at the noxiousness and tastelessness of drinking, hygienists and therapists insisting on the standpoint that absinth brought about epilepsia, schizophrenia and tuberculosis. Naturally, all the above-cited was a real heavenly music for the ears of vintners and producers of whisky and others. Immediately, they joined the campaign against absinthists, which resulted in the ban on the production and sale in France, in the United States of America, in Holland and in Switzerland. Only some of the states in Central Europe remained unaffected by the ban.

From one day to the next there disappeared the sound of the pendulum clocks announcing the "green hour", i.e. the time between five and seven p.m., during which there used to meet the drinkers of absinth at the tables: painters, poets, workers, prostitutes ... There were no desperate cries more: "Waiter, one admission ticket to Chareton!" (Chareton is a known French lunatic asylum). For absinth, the year 1915 was the year of the "decease".

However, absinth still was a beverage of the cult, a little mysterious, a little dangerous and therefore so attractive for a certain kind of people. The period drawings, mentioned at the beginning of the present text, do not exagerate, really: absinth is the beverage of those having something to do with desperation. Some of them because they are too sensitive, excitable, obsessed by imagination, others due to the permanent shadow of poverty and life failure accompanying them everywhere. It is the beverage of the best as well as that of the most miserable, the beverage of geniuses as well as that of idiots. But our century gradually eliminated the abysmal social differences, in the street you can only hardly tell a common person from a millionaire. Vices quickly become a subject of business, the door for snobism is open more than ever.

The Origins of Ancient and Modern Absinthe

Absinthe or Absinth in Czech was considered a vivifying elixir long before it could be ordered in a cafe. When Madame de Coulanges, one of the leading ladies of the seventeeth-century French court, became ill, she was prescribed a preparation containing wormwood. When it calmed her stomach, she wrote to Madame de Sevigne, "My little absinthe is the remedy for all diseases."

Hippocrates recommended absinthe for juandice and rheumatism. Ancient absinthe was different from the liquor that Verlaine and Picasso imbibed, generally being wormwood leaves soaked in wine or spirits. Most likely the word absinthe derives from the Greek worm apsinthion, which means "undrinkable" presumably because of its better taste. Pythagoras recommended wormwood soaked in wine to aid labor in childbirth. Hippocrates prescribed it for juandice, rheumatism, anemia, and menstrual pains. The Roman scholar Pliny the Elder called it apsinthium in the first century A.D. and noted that it was custoary for remind him that even glory has its bitter side. He also recommended it as an elixir of youth and as a cure for bad breath" Over the centuries, however, wormwood drinks moved away from being just bitter medicine. Independent distilleries were producing absinthe made from the dired leaves of wormwood steeped in equal parts of malmsey wine and "burning water thrice distilled". The "Purl" of Tudor England was compounded of ale or hot beer and wormwood, and although it was mainly popular with the working classes, Samuel Pepys reported in his famous diary that he has enjoyed several glasses of wormwood ale one night "in a little house" which doubtless was a bawdy house". These dusty tales convey something of the mystique surrounding absinthe; one imagines a flask of it sitting beside the alchemist's crocodile and the mandrake root. Absinthe incorporated Olympian legends of debauch and rather downhome peasant notions. Modern absinthe allegedly was invented in 1792 by and extraordinary French doctor called Pierre Ordinaire, who fled France's revolution to settle in Couvet, a small village in western Switzerland. On his periodic journeys by horseback, Dr. Ordinaire is said to have discovered the plant Artemisia absinthium growing wild in the hills of the Val-de-Travers region. Like most country doctors, he prepared his own remedies, and being acquainted with absinthe's use in ancient times, he began experimenting with it.

Dr. Ordinaire's recipe probably included the following herbs: wormwood, anise (Pimpinella anisum), hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis), dittany (Dictamnus albus), sweet flag (Acorus calamus), Melissa (a type of mint), and varying amounts of coriander, veronica, chamomile, parsley, and even spinach. The 136 proof elixir produced in his sixteen liter still became popular as a cure-all in town and early on was nicknamed La Fée Verte. On his death, he supposedly left his secret recipe to two Henriod sisters from Couvet, who then left it to a visiting Frenchman, Major Dubied, whose son-in-law was named Pernod, and the rest is history.

Absinthe Comes To America Absinthe soon found its way to the Little Paris of North America, New Orleans. The drink, which was spelled absynthe in an 1837 New Orleans liquor advertisment, enjoyed a vogue under such brand named as Green Opal, Herbsaint, and Milky Way. (Today, one can still find a version of tis made without wormwood and marketed under the named Herb Sainte.) Of all the ancient buildings in New Orleans's famed French Quarter, none has been more glorified by drunks and postcard photographers alike than a square, plaster and brick structure at the corner of Bourbon and Bienville streets. "The Old Absinthe House" with its scarred cypress bar was visited by many famous people: Oscar Wilde, Lafcadio Hearn, William Thackeray, Wlat Whitman, Aaron Burr, and General P.G.T. Beauregard are just a few of the many who relaxed over a green absinthe in this shady retreat. Alesix, Grand Duke of all Russians, drank here, and the chairs once creaked under William Howard Taft's presidential bul. The great O. Henry was just a struggling newspaperman named William Sidney Porter when he came to fream over an absinthe frappé.

The building was constructed in 1806 for the importing and commision firm of Juncadella & Font, two Catalans from Barcelona. In 1820, after Francisco Juncadella died and Pedro Font returned to his native Spain, the place continued as a commission house for the barter of foodstuffs, tobacco, clothing, and Spanish liquor. Relatives of the original owners turned it into and épicerie, then a bootshop. Finally, in 1846, the ground floor corner room became a saloon known as "Aleix's Coffee House," run by Jacinto Aleix and his brother, nephews of old Senora Juncadella. In 1899, the Aleix brothers hired Cayetano Ferrér, another Catalan, who had been a barkeeper at the French Opera House. In 1874, Cayetano himself leased the place and renamed it the "Absinthe Room" because of the numerous requests he had for the drink, which he served in the French manner. Stationed along the long cypress bar were marble fountains with brass faucets, which slowly dripped cool water, drop by drop, over the sugar cubes perched above the glasses. Over the years, the place became known as 'The Old Absinthe House". Absinthe was also drunk in San Francisco, Chicago and New York, which had a popular restaurant called the Absinthe House. Up until 1912, many of the more exotic bars in New York would serve an absinthe cocktail. One can imagine a piano player at one of these watering holes singing this Victor Herbert melody with lyrics by Glenn MacDonough:

But on July 13, 1907, Harper's Weekly noted, "The growing consumption in America of absinthe, 'the green curse of France,' has attracted the attention of the Department of Agriculture, and an investigation has been ordered to determine to what extent it is being manufacturied in this country". Just five years later, on July 25, 1912, the Department of Agriculture issued Food Inspection Decision 147, which banned absinthe in America.