The History of Absinthe

What is Absinthe?

Absinthe is a distilled spirit containing herbs, most notably wormwood.  Wormwood is the common name for Artemisia absinthium and has been used as a folk medicine for centuries. The ancient Greeks infused their wine with wormwood to treat rheumatism and anemia.

The ancient Romans thought it cured everything from fever to bad breath. Chinese texts dating from the first century B.C.E. indicated they used it to treat malaria.

The word itself seems to date to Middle English: wormwode—"wode" being an early word for “cure.” The bitter-tasting herb was used to treat intestinal parasites, thus the term “wormwood” evolved.

The first true absinthe

Modern absinthe can be traced to a French doctor living in the Swiss border town of Couvet. In the last decade of the 18th Century, Dr. Pierre Ordinaire distilled a liquor and infused it with the herbs wormwood, anise, and fennel.  According to a promotional brochure published by Pernod Fils in 1896, the good doctor used his “elixir” to treat a variety of ailments. After his death, his recipe continued to be produced in the village until it came to be owned by Henri-Louis Pernod who produced the first commercial absinthe at Pontarlier, France, in 1805.

He built a factory for the distillation of absinthe and was the first to sell it as a beverage rather than medicine. His sons took over the business after his death (hence the modern company name of Pernod Fils) and absinthe grew in popularity throughout the 19th Century.

The Belle Epoque 

In the 1870’s, misfortune struck the French winemaking industry.  The vineyards were all but wiped out by root blight. Wine became scarce and costly for the next thirty years. Absinthe consumption soared during this period. In cafes, its cost was half the price of whiskey and only slightly higher than beer.

During this first heyday, absinthe was the drink of choice by the artistic and literary set frequenting Parisian cafes. By the 1890’s, the drink had outgrown its cult status and was enjoyed by millions of imbibers. Five o’clock became known as l’heure verte—the green hour, when countless Parisians headed for the cafes of Montmartre to drink their favorite aperitif.

The Old Absinthe House, New Orleans, LA

In America, New Orleans was a popular spot for absinthe consumption. The Old Absinthe House was first built in the French Quarter in the early part of the Nineteenth Century and by the 1870’s was serving absinthe. Three large fountains sat on the bar to dispense ice water for preparation of the drink in the classic French manner.

The ban

The temperance furor of the early 20th Century began a campaign in numerous countries to ban absinthe. All sorts of charges were leveled against wormwood, most based on little, if any, actual science. Rather than the cure-all the ancients claimed, temperance advocates insisted absinthe could cause madness, epilepsy, even tuberculosis. That absinthe could have any ill effects over and above those caused by its alcoholic properties—and, in point of fact, absinthe does carry a very high alcohol content, typically 55-66%—were never proven, then or since.

Nevertheless, the United States made the sale of alcoholic products containing wormwood illegal in 1912. This prohibition remained in effect for ninety-five years.

The modern era

Oscar Wilde

The fact that wormwood contains thujone, a chemical cousin of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, set off modern speculation that absinthe had psychotropic capabilities. This rumor was bolstered by remarks attributed to Oscar Wilde, in which he  claimed than after drinking absinthe one night he began to hallucinate, imagining a field of tulips in the bar as he left it.

Again, scant scientific evidence supports this claim of hallucinogenic properties. Thujone has been shown to cause seizures in mice after they were given massive doses of the substance. Modern wormwood levels are regulated and no one could drink enough absinthe to suffer any adverse effects from the thujone content—alcohol poisoning being a far greater threat if absinthe were imbibed in such large quantities.

In 2007, the U.S. lifted its ban on products containing wormwood and a new age of absinthe drinking in America began.