Hey guys. Do to popular demand I’m put this bit of info up for everyone to familiarize themselves with Absinthe. Rather than using the word Absinthe. I like to use the phrase “the green fairy or just fairy” My personal Fairy is called Lilith. It is just a personification. I have never seen fairies while drinking it. Actually one time I thought I saw a fairy but when I came off my high I realized it was just Jake sitting on the other couch hon hon hon I hope you enjoy the info provided. I’ll work on a blog today and post it tonight or tomorrow.
Cheers Le Commis Glenn Chemise
Absinthe is historically described as a
distilled, highly
alcoholic (45–74%
ABV / 90-148
proof) beverage.
It is an
anise-flavoured
spirit derived from
herbs, including the flowers and leaves of the herb
Artemisia absinthium, commonly referred to as "grande wormwood", together with green
anise and sweet
fennel. Absinthe traditionally has a natural green colour but can also be colourless. It is commonly referred to in historical literature as "la fée verte" (the "green fairy" in French).
Although it is sometimes mistakenly called a
liqueur, absinthe is not bottled with added sugar and is therefore classified as a spirit. Absinthe is bottled at a very high
proof but is normally diluted with water when consumed.
Absinthe originated in the
canton of Neuchâtel in
Switzerland. It achieved great popularity as an
alcoholic drink in late 19th- and early 20th-century
France, particularly among Parisian artists and writers. Owing in part to its association with
bohemian culture, consumption of absinthe was opposed by
social conservatives and
prohibitionists.
Charles Baudelaire,
Paul Verlaine,
Arthur Rimbaud,
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec,
Amedeo Modigliani,
Vincent van Gogh,
Oscar Wilde,
Aleister Crowley, and
Alfred Jarry were all known drinkers of absinthe.
Absinthe has been portrayed as a dangerously
addictive psychoactive drug. The chemical
thujone, present in small quantities, was blamed for its alleged harmful effects. By 1915, absinthe had been banned in the
United States and in most European countries including
France, The Netherlands,
Belgium,
Switzerland and the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although absinthe was vilified, it has not been shown that it is any more dangerous than ordinary spirits. Its psychoactive properties, apart from those of alcohol, have been much exaggerated.
A revival of absinthe began in the 1990s, when countries in the
European Union began to reauthorize its manufacture and sale. As of February 2008, nearly 200 brands of absinthe were being produced in a dozen countries, most notably in
France,
Switzerland,
Spain, and the
Czech Republic.
The
French word
absinthe
can refer either to the alcoholic beverage or, less commonly, to the actual
wormwood plant (grande absinthe
being
Artemisia absinthium, and
petite absinthebeing
Artemisia pontica). The
Latin name
Artemisia
comes from
Artemis, the ancient
Greek goddess of the hunt.
Absinthe
is derived from the
Latin absinthium, which in turn is the
latinisation of the
Greek ἀψίνθιον
(apsínthion), "wormwood".
[8] The use of
Artemisia absinthium
in a drink is attested in
Lucretius'
De Rerum Natura (I 936–950), where Lucretius indicates that a drink containing wormwood is given as medicine to children in a cup with honey on the brim to make it drinkable. This was a
metaphor for the presentation of complex ideas in poetic form.
Some claim that the word means "undrinkable" in but it may instead be linked to the
Persian root
spand
or
aspand, or the variant
esfand, which meant also called Syrian Rue—although it is not actually a variety of, another famously bitter herb. That
Artemisia absinthium
was commonly burned as a protective offering may suggest that its origins lie in the reconstructed
root
*spend, meaning "to perform a ritual" or "make an offering". Whether the word was a borrowing from Persian into Greek, or from a common ancestor of both, is unclear.
Variant spellings of absinthe are
absinth,
absynthe, and
absenta. In English it is pronounced
in French.
Absinth (without the final
e) is a spelling variant used by central European distillers. It is the usual name for absinthe produced in the
Czech Republic and in
Germany, and has become associated.
The precise origin of absinthe is unclear. The medical use of wormwood dates back to
ancient Egypt and is mentioned in the
Ebers Papyrus, c. 1550 BC. Wormwood extracts and wine-soaked wormwood leaves were used as remedies by the
ancient Greeks. Moreover, there is evidence of the existence of a wormwood-flavoured wine,
absinthites oinos, in
ancient Greece.
[12]The first clear evidence of absinthe in the modern sense of a distilled spirit containing green anise and
fennel, however, dates to the 18th century. According to popular legend, absinthe began as an all-purpose
patent remedy created by Dr. Pierre Ordinaire, a
French doctor living in
Couvet,
Switzerland, around 1792 (the exact date varies by account). Ordinaire's recipe was passed on to the Henriod sisters of Couvet, who sold absinthe as a medicinal
elixir. By other accounts, the Henriod sisters may have been making the elixir before Ordinaire's arrival. In either case, a certain Major Dubied acquired the formula from the sisters and in 1797, with his son Marcellin and son-in-law Henry-Louis Pernod, opened the first absinthe distillery, Dubied Père et Fils, in
Couvet. In 1805 they built a second distillery in
Pontarlier, France, under the new company name Maison Pernod Fils.
Pernod Fils remained one of the most popular brands of absinthe up until the drink was banned in
France in 1914.
Absinthe's popularity grew steadily through the 1840s, when absinthe was given to French troops as a
malaria treatment.
When the troops returned home, they brought their taste for absinthe with them. It became so popular in
bars,
bistros,
cafés, and
cabarets that, by the 1860s, the hour of
5 p.m. was called
l'heure verte
("the green hour"). Absinthe was favoured by all
social classes, from the wealthy
bourgeoisie to poor artists and ordinary
working-class people. By the 1880s, mass production had caused the price of absinthe to drop sharply. By 1910, the French were drinking 36 million
litres of absinthe per year (compared to their consumption of almost 5 billion litres of wine).
Absinthe has been popular outside of
France, including
Spain,
New Orleans and the
Czech Republic. Absinthe was never banned in
Spain or
Portugal, and its production and consumption has never ceased. During the early 20th century it gained a temporary spike in popularity corresponding with the French influenced Art Nouveau and Modernism aesthetic movements.
[17]Absinthe has been consumed in the
Czech Republic (then part of
Austria–Hungary) since at least 1888, notably by Czech artists, some of whom had an affinity for
Paris, frequenting
Prague's famous
Cafe Slavia.
Its wider appeal in
Bohemia itself is uncertain, though it was sold in and around
Prague. There is evidence that at least one local liquor distillery in
Bohemia was making absinthe at the turn of the 20th century.
Spurred by the
temperance movement and the winemakers' associations, absinthe was publicly associated with violent crimes and social disorder. A critic said that Absinthe makes you crazy and criminal, provokes
epilepsy and
tuberculosis, and has killed thousands of French people. It makes a ferocious beast of man, a martyr of woman, and a degenerate of the infant, it disorganizes and ruins the family and menaces the future of the country.
Boche had known a joiner who had stripped himself stark naked in the rue Saint-Martin and died doing the
polka—he was an absinthe-drinker.
In 1905, it was reported that
Jean Lanfray murdered his family and tried to kill himself after drinking absinthe. The fact that Lanfray was an
alcoholic who had consumed much more than his usual two glasses of absinthe in the morning was either overlooked or ignored; the murders were blamed solely on absinthe.
[24] The murders were the last straw, and a petition to ban absinthe in
Switzerland was signed by more than 82,000 people. The prohibition of absinthe was then written into the
Swiss constitution in 1907.
In 1906
Belgium and
Brazil banned the sale and distribution of absinthe, although they were not the first. Absinthe had been banned as early as 1898 in the colony of the
Congo Free State.
The Netherlands banned absinthe in 1909;
Switzerland in 1910; the
United States in 1912, and
France in 1914.
The prohibition of absinthe in
France led to increased popularity of
pastis (and of
ouzo, to a lesser extent), anise-flavoured spirits that do not contain wormwood. The Pernod brand resumed production at the Banus distillery in
Catalonia,
Spain, where absinthe was still legal,
but slow sales in the 1960s eventually caused them to shut it down. In
Switzerland, the ban drove absinthe underground.
Clandestine home distillers produced absinthe, focusing on
la Bleue, which was easier to conceal from the authorities. Many countries never banned absinthe, notably
Britain, where it had not been as popular as in
continental Europe.
In the 1990s an importer,
BBH Spirits realized that there was no
UK law prohibiting the sale of absinthe, as it had never been banned there. They began to import Hill's Absinth (not a true Absinthe) from the
Czech Republic, which encouraged a modern resurgence in absinthe's popularity. Absinthe had also never been banned in other European countries where it was never popular; it is in these countries where absinthe first began to reappear during the revival in the 1990s. These absinthes—mostly Czech, Spanish, and Portuguese brands—are generally of recent origin, typically consist of
Bohemian-style products, and are therefore considered by absinthe connoisseurs to be of inferior quality.
La Fée Absinthe, released in 2000, was the first brand labelled absinthe distilled and bottled in
France since the 1914 ban, initially for export from
France, but now one of roughly 50 French-produced absinthes available in
France. French absinthes now must be labelled as
boissons spiritueuse aux plantes d'absinthe
to be sold within that country per the most recent guidelines. Absinthes produced in other countries must be relabelled to meet these same guidelines to be legally imported and sold within
France.
In the
Netherlands, restrictions on the manufacture and sale of Absinthe were successfully challenged by the
Amsterdam wine seller
Menno Boorsma in July 2004, making absinthe legal once again.
Belgium, as part of an effort to simplify its laws, removed its absinthe law on
1 January 2005, citing (as did the Dutch judge) European food regulations as sufficient to render the law unnecessary and in conflict with the spirit of the
Single European Market. In
Switzerland, the constitutional ban on absinthe was repealed in 2000 during an overhaul of the national constitution, although the prohibition was written into ordinary law instead. Later that law was repealed, so from
1 March 2005, absinthe was again legal in its country of origin. Absinthe is now not only sold but is once again distilled in its
Val-de-Travers birthplace, with
Kübler and
La Clandestine Absinthe among the first new brands to re-emerge.
Absinthe has a deep history in the Northern Catalan region of
Spain encompassing
Barcelona,
Tarragona,
Lleida, and a section of the
Pyrenees mountains. While the drink was never officially banned in
Spain, it fell out of favour from the early 1940s to present day. Since 2007 it has enjoyed a significant resurgence in the region and has at least one major export brand.
Absinthe has never been illegal to import or manufacture in Australia. Importation requires a permit under the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulation 1956 due to a restriction on importing any product containing oil of wormwood. In 2000 there was an amendment by Foods Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) as part of a new consolidation of the Food Code across Australia and New Zealand. This made all wormwood species prohibited herbs for food purposes under Food Standard 1.4.4. Prohibited and Restricted Plants and Fungi, however it was found to be inconsistent with other parts of the pre-existing Food Code. The proposed amendment was withdrawn in 2002 during the transition between the two Codes, thereby continuing to allow absinthe manufacture and importation through the existing permit-based system. These events were erroneously reported by the media as Australia having reclassified it from a prohibited product to a restricted product. There is now an Australian-produced brand of absinthe called Moulin Rooz.
In 2007 the French
Lucid brand became the first genuine absinthe to receive a COLA (Certificate of Label Approval) for importation into the
United States since 1912,
following independent efforts by representatives from Lucid and Kübler to topple the long-standing U.S. ban. In December 2007, St. George Absinthe Verte, produced by St. George Spirits of
Alameda,
California,
(SCINTALATING with a PH) became the first brand of American-made absinthe produced in the
United States since the ban.
Since that time, other micro-distilleries have started making small batches of high-quality absinthe in the
US.
Here’s the controversy. It was once thought that excessive absinthe drinking had worse effects than those associated with overindulgence in other alcoholic drinks, a belief that led to diagnoses of the disease of "absinthism". One of the first vilifications of absinthe was an 1864 experiment in which a certain Dr. Magnan exposed a
guinea pig to large doses of pure wormwood vapour and another to alcohol vapours. The guinea pig exposed to wormwood experienced convulsive seizures, while the animal exposed to alcohol did not. Magnan would later blame the chemical
thujone, contained in wormwood, for these effects.
Past reports estimated thujone levels in absinthe as being high—up to 260 mg/kg of absinthe. More recently, published scientific analyses of samples of various original absinthes have disproven earlier estimates, showing that very little of the thujone present in wormwood actually makes it into a properly distilled absinthe when using historical recipes and methods. Most proper absinthes, both vintage and modern, are within the current EU limits.
Tests on mice showed an
LD
of about 45 mg thujone per kg of body weight,
which is much more than could be consumed in absinthe. The high percentage of alcohol in absinthe would kill a person before the thujone would become life-threatening.
[75] In documented cases of acute thujone poisoning as a result of oral ingestion,
the source of thujone was not commercial absinthe, but rather non-controversial sources such as common essential oils, which can contain as much as 50% thujone.
A study in the
Journal of Studies on Alcohol concluded that high doses (0.28 mg/kg) of thujone in alcohol had negative effects on attention performance. It slowed down
reaction time, and caused subjects to concentrate their attention in the central field of vision. Low doses (0.028 mg/kg) did not produce an effect noticeably different from plain alcohol. While the effects of this high dose were
statistically significant in a
double blind test, the test subjects themselves were unable to reliably identify which samples were the ones containing thujone. For the average 65 kg man, the high dose in the study would be 18.2 mg of thujone. The EU limit of 10 mg/L of thujone in absinthe means that about 1.8 litres of the highest legal thujone content absinthe would have to be drunk to reach the measured effects, a feat likely to cause
alcohol poisoning. In
Canada,
liquor laws are established by the various
provincial governments. As with any spirit, importation by individuals for personal use is allowed, provided that conditions for the individual's duration outside the country are satisfied. (Importation is a federal matter, and is enforced by the
Canada Border Services Agency).
Absinthe is not sold in some provinces, although, in Saskatchewan, an individual is permitted to import one case (usually twelve 750 ml bottles or eight one-litre bottles) of any liquor. Individual provincial liquor boards must approve each product before it may be sold. Production of spirits in Canada is provincially regulated. Okanagan Spirits in British Columbia released the Taboo brand in 2007: this is possibly the first commercial absinthe crafted in Canada.
There is a code word some where in the body. Come into Le Bon Marché and say the code word and receive a free Chocolate Pate from the Chef.
