Absinthe is an anise-flavored liqueur distilled with oil of wormwood, a
leafy herb, and also containing flavorful herbs like hyssop, lemon balm and
angelica. Wormwood is Artemisia absinthum, a plant you can grow
yourself. The active ingredient is thujone, a neurotoxin. The drink is
distinguished by its dazzling blue-green clarity, due to its chlorophyll
content. It was traditionally served with water and a cube of sugar; the
sugar cube was placed on an "absinthe spoon", and the liquor was drizzled
over the sugar into the glass of water. The sugar helped take the bitter
edge from the absinthe, and when poured into the water the liquor turned milky
white.
Wormwood had been used medicinally since the Middle Ages, to
exterminate tapeworms in the abdomen while leaving the human
host uninjured and even rejuvenated by the experience. At
the end of the 18th century -- the age of revolution and
skeptical humanism -- the herb developed a recreational
vogue. People discovered they could get high off it. The
problem was the means of delivery, as it was unacceptably
bitter in taste.
An undocumented distiller -- perhaps in a pastoral convent
or monastery -- found the answer by inventing absinthe,
which delivered both the herb and alcohol in a stunningly
tart beverage, with a flavor resembling licorice. The most well-known maker of absinthe
was distiller Henri-Louis Pernod. Absinthe would eventually enjoy its greatest popularity in
fin-de-siècle Paris, with Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Verlaine and Oscar
Wilde among its most ardent imbibers.
Around the turn of the century, after observing a subset of alcoholism referred to
as "absinthism", and noting that heavy absinthe users had a propensity toward
madness and suicide, by the second decade of this century it became banned in the
Western world, along with opiates, cocaine, and cannabis.
Unlike other proscribed drugs, however, absinthe failed to attract alternative
entrepreneurs. As a liquid, the risk and cost of smuggling it made it far
less attractive a product than a powder or dried leaves.
After its banning, imitations, using anise and other legal
herbs in place of wormwood, appeared. The most well-known is
Pernod, which is very much like absinthe but without the wormwood.
But the similarity is only in color and taste; Pernod is without the
mind-numbing characteristics of absinthe. The practice of adding aromatic
bitters to cocktails also derives from a nostalgia for contraband
wormwood. .
Patients hospitalized in Paris for absinthe intoxication were noted to suffer "epileptiform
activity (seizures), chest effusion, reddish urine and kidney congestion", and while patients
did experience alterations in consciousness, auditory and visual hallucinations, they also suffered
terrible seizures and kidney problems. This seems more reason for its being banned.
Absinthe is (still) available (again) in Spain, Portugal, the Czech Republic Britain and Germany.
