Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway, Gauguin, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Degas are among the famous artists and writers who enjoyed drinking Absinthe.
Absinthe is a strong alcoholic beverage distilled at high proof but generally served diluted with iced water or in cocktails. Herbs and essential oils including wormwood (Artemisia Absinthium), aniseed and fennel is used for flavoring Absinthe liquor and it is usually made from a wine alcohol base. Hyssop, lemon balm, star anise, angelica, juniper, nutmeg, dittany, calamus root and mint are the other herbal ingredients used in the manufacture of Absinthe.
Information about Absinthe History
Absinthe has a very long and interesting history. Wormwood has been used for medicinal purposes since ancient times. Absinthe was produced by a French doctor, Dr Pierre Ordinaire in the late 18th century in the Swiss town of Couvet in the Val-de-Travers. Ordinaire gave it as a tonic to his patients.
The Absinthe recipe was used by Henri-Louis Pernod to distill Absinthe in Couvet and then the French town of Pontarlier under the name of Pernod Fils. It is said that the Pernod company was producing 30,000 liters of Absinthe every day by the middle of the 19th century!
Absinthe was a popular drink in most of the countries. The popularity of Absinthe was more in comparison to wine in France. Simultaneously there were concerns related to health and the effects of Absinthe. The loose morals and artists and writers of the Bohemian culture were linked with the liquor. People became convinced that the psychedelic effects, convulsions, insanity, brain damage and death were caused due to the thujone content in wormwood.
According to the people’s thought Absinthe was the cause behind Van Gogh’s insanity and his suicide, a man killing his family and the rising rate of alcohol abuse in France. Absinthe was made illegal in 1912 in the USA and in 1915 in France. Other countries also made it illegal to buy and sell Absinthe.
Absinthe Revival
During the ban, people either drank absinthe substitutes, such as Pernod Pastis, or bought bootleg Absinthe. Most of the people were convinced with the reports given by studies and research about Absinthe.
Research proved that effects of Absinthe was similar to the consumption of other strong alcoholic beverages like whisky and vodka and one cannot be harmed due to the thujone content in Absinthe.
The EU legalized Absinthe with up to 10mg/kg of thujone in the late 20th century and in 2007 the USA legalized certain brands of Absinthe which contained up to 10 ppm of thujone .
France, home of Pernod’s original Absinthe still has a ban on products labeled “Absinthe” and France also strictly regulates drinks containing fenchone, a chemical in fennel which is a key ingredient in Absinthe. The fenchone content in Absinthe is 5mg per liter in France,.
In these times of revival, it is possible to get Absinthe from anywhere.One can get more information about Absinthe essences on AbsintheKit.com. They also sell replica Absinthe glasses and spoons like a Pontarlier glass and Eiffel Tower spoon.
