Absinthe History

Absinthe is (unfortunately) surrounded by quite a few myths, misinterpretations, and outright inaccuracies. These are mainly due to its fascinating history, which is peculiar in that—unlike other spirits—it was in fact completely banned in a large number of countries between about 1910 and 1915. But in the 1990s, a revival began, essentially triggered by some liquor producers in what is now the Czech Republic who, despite not having much real knowledge of absinthe, started making so-called "absinth". Nevertheless, they sparked interest, and very quickly information was gathered about both absinthe’s history and its chemistry, properties, production methods, and legal status. So, in order to shed light on this history, I might as well start from the beginning.

It is probably not entirely clear who first began producing absinthe as we know the drink today, or who wrote the recipe. The history of absinthe goes back at least to the 1790s. But this refers to the spirit absinthe, since the word absinthe really just means wormwood (from its Latin name Artemisia absinthium), and long before the 1790s various extracts of wormwood were made that were believed to have many health-promoting properties.

It was precisely as a health tonic that a certain Dr. Pierre Ordinaire began promoting the alcoholic drink absinthe just after the French Revolution of 1789. The question, however, is whether it was really he, or perhaps Henriette Henriod (or the Henriod sisters), who actually came up with the recipe. In any case, one can assume that it was Dr. Ordinaire who started to make the drink known, at least regionally. He traveled around in and around Val-de-Travers in Switzerland, near the French border, and sold absinthe to farmers and townsfolk under the premise that it was a cure for practically any ailment one might have. Word spread and reached a man named Major Daniel Henri Dubied (1758–1844), who saw the economic potential—perhaps more than the health benefits—of absinthe. Dubied bought the recipe from Henriod (not from Dr. Ordinaire) in 1797 and began producing absinthe on a larger scale in Couvet, Switzerland. However, it did not take long before Major Dubied’s son-in-law Henri-Louis Pernod considered the facilities in Couvet too small and founded what soon became the Pernod Fils absinthe distillery in Pontarlier (in the Doubs region) in France, near the Swiss border.

Extrait D'Absinthe Pernod Fils. That name carries weight. During the 19th century, Pernod Fils absinthe became the de facto standard for what an absinthe should be. Whether this was solely due to the drink’s excellent qualities and taste, or rather to the business acumen of those involved, I will leave unsaid. The fact remains, however, that Pernod Fils began on a relatively modest scale, but by 1850 they already had 26 stills and were producing around 20,000 liters of absinthe per day. Their success may also have had something to do with the, for the time, progressive approach the owners had toward both their employees and social development in general. (It is worth mentioning briefly here that the modern Pernod Absinthe is not the same company as back then, and according to more knowledgeable connoisseurs, not at all the same absinthe. I will return to this on the fact page.)

The popularity of absinthe also definitely increased as French soldiers serving in the colonies (especially in Algeria between 1844 and 1847) were issued absinthe as a means to disinfect water. A few drops of absinthe in what was presumed to be undrinkable water would make it safe to drink. One might even say that over time it became more like a few drops of water in the absinthe instead. In any case, the French colonial troops brought their taste for this “health tonic”, this state- and officer-recommended water purifier, back to France after their service, and in doing so they simply made drinking absinthe increasingly popular.

The reputation that absinthe now holds, however, primarily stems from the period commonly known as la belle époque (1871–1914), which is characterized by faith in the future, cultural development, general optimism, and peace. The term was not coined until the time of the First World War and can therefore be assumed to be a somewhat romanticized view of the period before the war.

What is perhaps most closely associated with absinthe are the boulevards and cafés of Paris around the turn of the previous century, bohemians and avant-garde artists, the Moulin Rouge, and other establishments. The time after roughly five in the afternoon came, especially in Paris, to be called l’heure verte, or the Green Hour, and it was green for a reason one might say. At that time, the boulevards and cafés filled with people from the rapidly growing middle class, who, after the day’s work, began their more or less customary "happy hour", that is l’heure verte. Absinthe flowed, people were (usually) cheerful, and the air was filled with the distinct aromas of absinthe being prepared on terraces and indoors. Artists, bohemians, writers, and poets also contributed to giving absinthe a certain aura. Those known for their absinthe drinking, and who also wrote about or depicted the noble drink, include Paul Verlaine (who can quite clearly be called an absinthist), Paul Degas, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Édouard Manet, Arthur Rimbaud, Oscar Wilde, Picasso, and Vincent van Gogh. (The latter cutting off one of his own ears is often blamed primarily on absinthe consumption, despite reports that he also had other peculiar habits, such as eating the yellow paint he used in his paintings.) .. For us Swedes the author and playwright August Strindberg, for example, was by no means a crappy absinthe drinker.

The Absinthe Bans

After all, it is a fact that absinthe was banned in a number of countries during the 1910s. Switzerland was hit by such a ban in 1910. Other countries in Europe that banned absinthe included, for example, France in 1915 and Germany in 1923. Across the Atlantic, absinthe was banned in the United States in 1912, and the "real" ban there was not lifted until as late as 2007. In Canada, it was left to each province to decide how the legislation would look. At the same time, however, there are many countries that were never actually affected by any ban on absinthe. In general, though, this applied to countries where demand was not particularly high, such as the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, and Spain. (Spain, however, came to stand out somewhat after the ban in neighboring France.)

One must still ask the question, though: what was it really that caused absinthe to be banned in a number of countries, and for so many years? Something must have made the harmful effects be regarded as so serious that it was decided to prohibit the drink?

Yes, the alcohol-related harmful effects are of course an aspect that cannot be ignored. But in reality, it was not about any particular harmful effects that could be blamed solely on absinthe; rather, it concerned alcohol in general. Alcoholism was quite a major social problem during the 19th century and around the turn of the last century, and certainly not only in France. Sweden and, for example, the United States faced the same problem. The relatively widespread alcoholism meant that temperance movements around the world began to grow significantly and make themselves increasingly felt in the political debate, especially during the latter part of the 19th century.

In the midst of this zeal for temperance, French wine producers were struck by the phylloxera pest, an insect that wiped out nearly all vineyards in Europe. When the wine industry later began to recover slowly, it discovered, however, that people had started drinking absinthe instead—and that they had also developed a taste for this "novelty". This (in other words, pure competitive reasons) caused the wine industry to join forces with the temperance movement in a kind of unholy alliance, unholy at least by today’s standards. Absinthe was at that time an enormously popular drink in France, and absinthe consumption had in principle replaced the consumption of wine—most likely due to the devastation caused by phylloxera, which had made wine relatively expensive. For the wine industry, it was therefore a situation of vulnerable competition. The temperance movement, on its part, gained a "suitable" scapegoat on which to focus its efforts, with the willing assistance of the wine industry. Wine was simply seen as a mealtime beverage, while absinthe was singled out as the root of virtually all evil. (In the United States, as we know, the temperance movement and politicians pushed through Prohibition, during which alcohol in general was more or less completely banned.)

Something else that also contributed to the absinthe bans, and that provided the temperance movement and the wine industry with scientific arguments against absinthe, was the development of chemical technology. It was discovered that absinthe (usually) contains a substance called thujone. This substance is toxic in itself and should never be consumed in significant amounts. In small quantities, however, it has proven to be completely harmless. The problem was that the chemical analysis methods and scientific methodology of the early 20th century were by no means at the same level as today.

Indeed! Researchers (e.g., Dr. Magnan - read under History about Magnan) did actually find the substance thujone in absinthe, which led, for instance, to a number of experiments on animals where one control group was exposed to alcohol (without thujone) and another to concentrated thujone, that is, in quantities that were clearly life-threatening. Naturally, it turned out that the animals fell asleep, or rather became unconscious, from the alcohol, but they died from the thujone... In other words: Thujone is dangerous and should be avoided! But the question is: how much thujone did absinthe really contain back then—or does it contain today? Harmful substances, or traces of harmful substances, can be found in practically any food. As far as I know, there is probably no foodstuff exempt from this. The analytical methods of the time could, however, essentially only establish that absinthe (usually) contained thujone. Nowadays we know, thanks to dedicated enthusiasts such as Ted Breaux* for example, that neither modern absinthe nor the absinthe that existed during la belle époque contains levels that can be shown to have any harmful effects whatsoever. (Source: Chemical Composition of Vintage Preban Absinthe...)

*) I’m linking here to a section on the "My journey" page, mainly so that you can watch a lecture by the absinthe "professor" Ted Breaux himself there.(Look for the link "History of the Green Fairy...".)

An event that ultimately brought about the downfall of absinthe, at least in Switzerland, but apparently also in France, was the widely publicized case of Jean Lanfray. Lanfray was a simple farm laborer in Switzerland who murdered his own family (his wife and two daughters) in a domestic tragedy, clearly under the influence of alcohol. That Lanfray was an alcoholic who drank liters of wine along with other spirits, more or less for breakfast on the day of the crime, attracted little attention. It was instead the recorded and, in this context, rather modest six centiliters of absinthe that became the main target, at least in the media of the time and among absinthe’s opponents. Thus, it was the enormously popular absinthe that was singled out as the villain of the drama, far more than Jean Lanfray himself or his overall alcohol consumption.

It should probably also be added that even at that time (during la belle époque) there were less scrupulous producers. Absinthe was at least France’s main national drink (while waiting for wine to recover from the phylloxera pandemic and once again reclaim the status of national drink numero uno). At the same time, France, like most countries at the time, was a rigidly stratified society. The wealthy could afford to drink genuine absinthe, and they were also quite loyal to certain brands. But the poor, including many artists and poets, often had to make do with inferior "absinthes" that in many cases contained downright toxic substances, such as copper sulfate to make the drink green. There was also no real legislation governing the area, so it was essentially open season for fraudsters (like nowadays) to make money off people who could not afford the genuine stuff.

The Time After The Bans

When the ban was implemented in France, part of the production (above all the most popular Pernod Fils) was moved to Spain. That country had not been affected by any absinthe ban, and there—in Tarragona, a few miles southwest of Barcelona—Pernod Fils absinthe was produced completely legally until sometime in the 1960s, when steadily declining sales figures made continued production commercially unviable. In Switzerland, a number of smaller "distilleries", especially in the Val-de-Travers valley (the birthplace of absinthe), kept the tradition alive, and absinthe was clandestinely distilled there throughout virtually the entire 20th century. Their "moonshine" absinthe came to be called La Bleue, since producers generally avoided coloring the product, especially not green, so that the contents of the bottles would not be too easily recognized.

In Sweden’s case, some absinthe was imported from leftover stocks in France even during the years immediately following the French ban in 1915. France continued to export the absinthe that had already been produced and remained in storage. Later, however, when alcohol sales became monopolized in Sweden, it became Systembolaget’s policy (not a legal ban strictly speaking) not to sell spirits stronger than about 45–50% (vol). Over time, however, a malicious rumor also arose in Sweden, claiming that absinthe was both illegal (?) and hallucinogenic, therefore supposedly far more dangerous and harmful than other spirits. But that is simply a rumor, one that is not true, and which I will also write more about on the facts page.

The question, however, is whether at least some artists and writers during la belle époque can be blamed for having contributed to the mystification of absinthe. One expression that comes from that time is, for example, the Green Fairy (la fée verte), a nickname (or perhaps slur) for absinthe. The name suggests, in short, that a green fairy, or perhaps some kind of otherworldly inspiring muse, might appear to those who drink absinthe. It is therefore quite natural to say that absinthe was believed to have more or less hallucinogenic properties, even if one must assume that it was rather an expression of artistic freedom. Two fairly well-known paintings from that period depict how the absintheur is beset or courted by this Green Fairy.

Albert Maignan

La muse verte

Viktor Oliva

The Absinthe Drinker

One can consequently say that the drink absinthe gradually acquired an increasingly dubious reputation over time. After the bans of the 1910s, moreover, there was no one who effectively revised this reputation (not until around the 1990s). Absinthe simply became that mysterious drink that supposedly made one hallucinate, the one that could make you cut off your ears and, in short, drive you insane. Exciting or frightening? That was entirely up to each individual to judge. In any case, absinthe carried a stigma that would take some effort to remove. By all accounts, that stigma still lingers to some extent even today, though it is getting better and better over time. From around the 2000s onward, I would say it has improved significantly. Some misconceptions still persist, however. For example, the relatively widespread misunderstanding that absinthe must contain as much thujone as possible—or at least as much as legally permitted—and that this "high" thujone content makes the drink something entirely different from other spirits.

Nowadays, genuine (that is, authentic) absinthe is slowly but surely regaining some of its former luster. This is, however, very, very, very far from the same as the drink regaining its former greatness. (To consume, as in France around 1910, roughly 36 million liters of absinthe per year is hardly even desirable if one takes a "sober" perspective on the matter.) Still, one must be careful about what is actually absinthe and what is in fact nothing more than flavored spirits, which in the overwhelming majority of cases never come close to the taste and character of true absinthe. More on this on the next page, where I address facts and the current state of knowledge.