IN SEARCH OF THE GREEN FAIRY
Absinthe was invented in 1797 by Dr. Pierre Ordinaire. Henri-Louis Pernod opened the first Absinthe distillery in Switzerland and then moved to a larger one in Pontarlier, France in 1805. By the 1850's it had become the favorite drink of the upper class. The bohemian lifestyle embraced it. La fée verte (the green fairy) as it became commonly known, was most popular in France. Most days started with a drink and ended with l'heure verte (the green hour) as one or two or more were taken for it's apéritif properties. It is interesting to note that it also has aphrodisiac and narcotic properties.
Authors and artists were proponents for using it to induce creativity. It is said to make colors more vivid, and sound more crisp and rythmic. It's popularity soared from 1880 on. Advertisements touted it as being healthful. It was exported to New Orleans and reached the same acclaim in the United States. It was one of the few drinks considered lady-like and women freely enjoyed it in the coffee houses where it was most commonly served. Victorian era men however, found women freely enjoying Absinthe distasteful. In 1905, Jean Lanfray who was very intoxicated, murdered his wife. He supposedly only had two glasses of Absinthe but none the less, his trial became known as the "Absinthe Murder".
Prohibition movements were underway. Absinthe was singled out as the maddening culprit and became synonymous with alcohol. Experiments started to be conducted often by injecting large doses of the oil of wormwood into animals. Absinthism was named as a disease. On July 25th, 1912, the Department of Agriculture issued Food Inspection 147, which banned Absinthe in America, and finabsinthey France followed in 1915.Absinthe is an alcoholic drink made with an extract from wormwood (Artemisia absinthium). It is an emerald green drink which is very bitter (due to the presence of absinthin) and is therefore traditionally poured over a perforated spoonful of sugar into a glass of water. The drink then turns into an opaque white as the essential oils precipitate out of the alcoholic solution (louche). Absinthe was once popular among artists and writers and was used by Van Gogh, Baudelaire, and Verlaine, to name a few. It appears to have been believed to stimulate creativity. However, in the 1850's, there began to be concern about the results of chronic use.
.Famous absinthe users include:
.Edouard Manet
.Charles Baudelaire
.Paul Verlaine
.Arthur Rimbaud
.Oscar Wilde
.Ernest Dowson
.Edgar Degas
.Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
.Vincent Van Gogh
.Adolphe Monticelli
.Paul Gauguin
.Alfred Jarry
.Pablo Picasso
.Ernest Hemingway