The nickname 'La Fée Verte' - given to the drink after its invention by Dr. Pierre Ordinaire in 1792 - is associated with magic, mythology and provocatively intoxicating female figures.

This long history of magical associations with wormwood and its powers worked to popularise Dr. Ordinaire's concoction, and to heighten Absinthe's popularity and mystical appeal.

The plant has been recognised for centuries (the Egyptians called it Saam) but Dr. Ordinaire probably used a recipe from the sisters Henriod at the beginning of the 19th century. By 1805, the Pernod-Fils absinthe company was set up in Pontarlier, France, by Henri-Louis Pernod.

The popularity of the drink spread further, as it was used as a fever preventative by French troops fighting in Algeria from 1844-1847. When the troops returned to France, they brought with them their taste for the anisette drink.

Absinthe hit its peak during the years from 1880-1914, a period named the 'great collective binge'. The drink is a symbol of inspiration and daring, associated with the artistic life, and fast became 'the drink of Parisian abandon'. In 1874 the French consumed 700 thousand litres of Absinthe, by 1910 it rose to 36 million litres of Absinthe per year!

It was also exported to New Orleans, where it quickly became extremely popular, but Americans' enjoyment of The Green Fairy was cut short when United States health officials imposed a ban on the drink in 1912.

Absinthe and the authorities

This ban followed the examples set by Holland, Belgium, Brazil and other countries. France was last to ban, finally prohibiting absinthe after a long series of debates, in 1915. Still, the drink remained so popular that it continued to be sold (sometimes in disguised form, one of the more unusual being in hair tonic bottles) as late as the 1920's and 1930's.

The drink was banned due to the high concentration of the nerve-poison Thujon from the Wormwood plant, which has hallucinogenic properties. Van Gogh is said to have cut off his own ear under its influence, and the poet Paul Verlaine is said to have shot his own friend, Rambaud.

It is only 2 years ago that the ban of Ansinthe in EEC countries was lifted. The maximum concentration of Thujon is now stringently controlled, so that today anyone can enjoy Absinthe without fear of side-effects (except of course those generally associated with the consumption of alcohol). Marí Mayans Absinthe is distilled solely from plants anyway.

It has never been illegal in Spain or the United Kingdom to make, sell or drink Absinthe.

Absinthe and the arts

In 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' Ernest Hemingway writes:

...one cup of it took the place of the evening papers of all the old evenings in cafes, of all chestnut trees that would be in bloom now in this month....

Oscar Wilde added:

The first stage is like ordinary drinking, the second when you begin to see monstrous and cruel things, but if you can persevere you will enter in upon the third stage where you see things that you want to see, wonderful curious things'

Wilde goes on to explain how, during this third stage, one imagines tulips and simultaneously feels them brushing against one's shins.

For those more interested in flouting authority absinthe is closely identified with counterculture. Absinthe is romanticized and captured in artwork and writings by, Van Gogh, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway, Picasso, and many others. It almost seems as if there was no artist who lived during the 'great collective binge' who did not revel in Absinthe. All these artists were exemplary of an alternative life style.

Degas' famous 'L'Absinthe' (1876) pictures two forlorn-looking café-squatters staring, dishevelled, out beyond their opaline drinks. Although the people pictured were merely actors, this painting later roused intense Francophobia in England.

Manet, however, dared to paint an actual street bum with Absinthe, titled 'The Absinthe Drinker' (1859). The man leans on a wall, vacuous-eyed and bundled in rags.

Even more unusually, Van Gogh (introduced to absinthe by Toulouse-Lautrec and Gauguin) painted many of his works in ochres and pale greens, which are the colors of Absinthe. Many of these paintings also depict the bar in which Van Gogh drank Absinthe, and himself with glasses of the apéritif.

Absinthe was originally banned because of the fear of the drink's counter-culture revolutionary aspect; Absinthe is a 'symbol of the bohemian spirit'. Absinthe had its own slang, which is attractive to those in the know and undeniably irritating, if not terrifying, to those who are not.

Absinthe is now enjoying an ever-increasing popularity. At the forefront of this growth is Marí Mayans' Absinthe which is establishing itself as the most palatable and interesting materialisation of the drink's long history.

Absinthe and Literature

"For me, my glory is but a humble ephemeral absinthe
drunk on the sly, with fear of treason
and if I drink no longer,
it is for good reason!"

Paul Verlaine

Absinthe, mother of insane rages and staggering drunkenness, where one can say without thinking oneself mad that one is loved by one's mistress.
Absinthe, your fragrance soothes me...

Gustave Kahn

Who brought you into this world, and ever since,
a tender mother,
Standing you double stead in this bitter life,
Has always drunk the absinthe and left the
honey for you.

Victor Hugo

"Let me be mad ... mad with the madness of Absinthe, the wildest, most luxurious madness in the world."

Wormwood: A Drama of Paris
Marie Corelli, 1890

But in the end she is as bitter as wormwood, And as sharp as a two-edged sword.

Bible: Proverbs 5:4

[ Many Thanks to www.absenta.com for some of the images and text on these pages ]