Absinthe started as an all-purpose patent
remedy in Switzerland. A man named Major Dubied saw its potential as a spirit
and bought the recipe from two sisters. In 1805 he started the Pernod Fils
distillery, which was run by his son-in-law Henry-Lewis Pernod. Absinthe's popularity grew steadily until
the 1840's when absinthe was given to French troops as a fever preventative.
When the troops returned home they brought their taste for absinthe with
them and it became popular at bars and bistros.
A central belief about absinthe is that because
the drink is based on the wormwood plant - which contains thujone (a neurotoxin)
- it can make people who drink it go crazy (i.e. Vincent Van Gogh cutting
off his ear after drinking absinthe). However, this myth is still subject
to much discussion.
In the 1860s absinthe was so popular that in most cafés and cabarets in France 5 p.m. signaled "l'heure Verte" (the green hour)! Although absinthe was a favourite drink, it was expensive and thus consumed mainly by the bourgeoisie and eccentric bohemian artists.
By the 1880s the price on absinthe had dropped significantly, opening the market to many more people. Absinthe had become the drink of France; by 1910 France consumed 36 million liters of absinthe per year!
At the end of the 19th Century the temperance movement and winemakers' associations linked absinthe with several violent crimes supposedly committed under the direct influence of the drink, along with a general tendency toward hard liquor consumption due to the wine shortage in France during the 1880s and 1890s, effectively targeting absinthe's popularity as a social menace. Its critics said that "it makes people crazy and criminal, it turns men into brutes and threatens the future of our times".
In 1915 absinthe was finally prohibited in France, following similar bans in the Congo Free State in 1898, then in Brazil and in Belgium in 1906, in Holland in 1908, in Switzerland in 1910 and in the USA in 1912. However, absinthe was never banned in the UK, nor in much of Southern and Eastern Europe. Most of the great absinthe-producing firms went bankrupt, or amalgamated, or switched to producing pastis, while others went underground conducting bootlegging operations.
In the beginning of the 1990s a modern revival of absinthe took place after the collapse of the Iron Curtain, and Czechoslavakia’s 1987 “Velvet Revolution”. Integral to Czech absinth is the so called Bohemian absinthe ritual, which involves soaking a sugar cube with absinthe, and then setting it alight, before plunging the caramelised sugar into the glass - a necessity since Bohemian absinth contains little anise and doesn't louche.
In 1998 absinthe is revived in the UK by George Rowley (founder of La Fée Absinthe) where an innovative publicity campaign soon makes it a must-have drink in trendy nightclubs and bars. His action became the catalyst allowing the return of absinthe once again to Europe and the world.
