Is Absinthe Really Evil?! A look at the history of this storied spirit

absence the mythical muse of artists and writers has a strong claim to being the most notorious spirit of all time but what exactly is the green fairy and does it deserve its infamy or was it the victim of a relentless smear campaign let's take a deep dive into the green tinge liquid which is reappearing on back bars everywhere this video is brought to you in partnership with a plus which is a new website hosting content for and by the hospitality industry definitely check them out below [Music] wormwood has been used to treat a variety of ailments as far back as ancient egypt its latin name is artemisia absinthium and in ancient greece it was often soaked in wine to create sort of a medicinal tonic wormwood itself though is unbearably bitter and so there have been many attempts to make it more palatable throughout the years vermouth being an obvious example one other such attempter was dr ordinaire a french physician who fled to switzerland to escape the french revolution in the late 1700s and he landed on a concoction which used 15 botanicals including licorice starinis and sweet fennel to mask the bitterness of the wormwood forming the distinctive aniseed taste that we now expect he took the name from the wormwood calling it extra absinthe and patented it there's also a claim to the recipe from some sisters living in the same swiss town but they sound much less like evil super villains than dr ordinaire so he gets the credit what is definite though is that commercial distillation of absence was started by a family who came to be known after a couple of marriages opening a second distillery in france and losing a few letters from their surname as the purnos and they remain one of the biggest names in absence to this day good quality absinthe is distilled in much the same way as good quality gin so botanicals are steeped in neutral alcohol and then re-distilled to subdue bitterness and create complexity coming straight off the still absinthe is clear and then the green color comes from another maceration of herbs afterwards and this also imparts some extra aroma and a tannin-like structure so there we have it absinthe is a swiss-born distilled spirit happily adopted by the french it contains wormwood and has a predominantly aniseed flavoring yes it does tend to be quite high in alcohol but it doesn't really sound so scary does it [Music] the problem you see is that the french took to this new libation rather too enthusiastically the french armed forces were prescribed wormwood often in the form of absence to ward off malaria while fighting in north africa and developed a taste for it civilians were happy to align themselves with these conquering heroes as they were seen and unveir becomes a fashionable order in bars and cafes all over france then disaster struck the french wine industry phylloxera which is a root disease decimated them and fashionable or not absence was cheap and abundant and primed to fill the gap by 1849 france had 26 absence distilleries and was consuming about 10 million liters of absence a year meanwhile a golden era of cocktails was happening in the united states and in the heavily french-influenced new orleans the herbal flavoring was being put to good use in stylish drinks such as the sazerac absence was seen as a great equaliser enjoyed by both rich and poorer often from the same absence fountains its mythology began to grow fueled by creative geniuses such as baudelaire and manny who claimed altered perceptions and a sense of liberation were to be found at the bottom of an absence goblet one can't help but feel that many of these men would have found such enlightenment and perhaps a little dose of crazy at the bottom of anything that they happened to suck from but it is fair to say that some of the distilleries pumping out absinthe to meet the ever-rising demand were rather more unscrupulous than good old purno effie and there were harmful additives such as copper sulfate and antimony trichloride being used to mimic the effects created by the botanicals which were much more expensive the main man we have to thank though for the demonisation of the licorius lace liquor was a dr valentin magnan whose rather flawed understanding of scientific process meant he thought it was totally reasonable to test the effects of absence versus alcohol by feeding pure wormwood oil to lab animals and then use their resulting convulsions to substantiate claims of an absence madness distinct from just being drunk now those of you who are paying attention might remember that absinthe is not the only alcoholic product to contain wormwood vermouth is also literally named after it so why was that wine based product never stigmatized in the same way well the wine industry in france was recovering and they weren't particularly happy to have lost such a large share of their market to a green upstart which used none of their product 1880 many parisians would order absence by asking for uncorrespondence or a ticket to sharonton the local insane asylum so convinced were people of the hallucinogenic effects caused by absinthe-induced madness or absenteeism much talked about in the press in switzerland in 1905 a terrible murder was attributed to it despite the fact that the man had drank literally liters of strong wine as well as brandy that day the two measures of absence that he consumed in the morning were deemed responsible for his awful decision to shoot his whole family a conclusion actually based heavily on dr magnan's flawed experiment the wine industry in prohibitionists proved a powerful lobby and the reputation of absence was in tatters the bands began switzerland belgium the us and eventually france among others sent the green fairy now more commonly known as the green devil into exile so if absence died out then why are we still talking about it well that's because it never really did what's that abstinence doesn't work shock it in switzerland absence production went underground in some countries like spain where puerto moved their factory to never actually banned it but its popularity definitely did dwindle at least until the 1990s the czech republic had also never banned absence but production did stop under their communist regime when it fell in the 1990s they began to make absinthe again which of course proved a huge novelty to tourists already hyped up on one euro beers all these guys really wanted was to say that they tried the forbidden fruit so the higher in alcohol and more luridly green the better and a lot of substandard and improperly made products appeared to fill demand now my lawyer brain loves this next bit and i have to give full credit to difference guide for this story because i didn't actually know about it before i was researching this but apparently we really have an englishman named george rowley and his tenacity with eu regulations to thank for absence revival he had fallen in love with prague while living there and when he moved back to the uk started importing the czech pilsners and so on that he'd discovered one thing that he wanted to import was hill's absence but it was illegal or so everyone assumed here's the thing the uk had actually never banned absence when france did supplies just dried up and they just sort of let it be so all riley had to do was get it past a european union import directive and then due to the eu system if it could be sold in the uk it could be sold in every member state even france rowley also realized that france had never actually banned the production of absence just the sale and so he looked to find and revive a traditional absence distillery purely for export and luffy was born a high quality product based on a pre-banned recipe which led the way for the new wave these legal loopholes laid the groundwork for the green ferry to rise from the dead so are we all headed to wreck and ruin in an aniseed smelling thug as legal restrictions relaxed modern scientists took a closer look sue jones the essence of wormwood was long deemed the culprit for any hallucinogenic effect but none has been proved in very high doses it can cause spasms and convulsions as in maglin's lab experiment but you would die of alcohol poisoning long before you could ingest enough from absence lots of countries including the us have regulations around sodom levels but traditional absence never contained high levels anyway in all likelihood the high alcohol content was a problem all along so absent lucius all round but only one or two with all of this chatting about the history and mystique of this storied spirit i'm getting a little thirsty probably about time we look at some absinthe serves and cocktails so make sure you've subscribed and hit the notification bell so you don't miss out when that video drops and thank you very much again to a plus for partnering with this episode and letting me indulge a little bit of history nerdiness absinthe so now you know [Music] you

Channel: Behind the Bar

Views: 15,655

Keywords: absinthe, absinth, absenth, absenthe, pernod, what is absinthe, what is absinth, what is absenth

Id: pzuuNqITZho

Length: 9min 27sec (567 seconds)

Published: Thu May 12 2022