Thinking Drinkers: A beginner's guide to absinthe

France. What a frightening place. The flick knives, the devil bangers, the CS gas, the ambitious cheeses, the conjugating the verb “aller” into all the compound tenses….and, of course, the absinthe.

Handcuffed to high times, horror, hallucination, hedonism and horrendous hangovers, French absinthe’s tale is one of destruction and decadence, depravity and dandies, deviance, drunkenness, death and ritual deification.

It was quietly legalised three years ago, after more than a century of exile, but absinthe was once the green-eyed opium of the everyman, the darling drink of the bourgeois and the bohemian that ruined 19th century France.

The wild green fairy liquid inspired the art of Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Edouard Manet, Paul Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec and most famously, of course, Vincent Van Gogh – who cut off his ear after a heavy night getting tight on absinthe with Paul Gaugin.

Absinthe’s origins are not French, but closely connected to Couvet, a small Swiss village popular among royalists who fled France during its Revolution (1789-99). One exile was a Dr Pierre Ordinaire (‘Ordinary Pete’) who, legend has it, went about creating a tonic showcasing the medicinal properties of wormwood.

Wormwood was used in the Middle Ages to cure ringworm. Hippocrates used it to cure flatulence, Pythagoras used it to ease childbirth and virgins took it to rid them of ‘the scab’. It tastes extremely bitter though so Ordinary Pete mixed it with a number of different plants and distilled it - labelling his new elixir Extrait d’Absinthe after wormwood’s Latin name (Artemisia absinthium).

Other historians have it that it was the Doctor’s housekeepers, the Henriod sisters, who first invented absinthe, but whoever first fashioned “La Fee Verte”, there’s no denying it was Major Daniel-Henry Dubied who elevated it from an elixir for indigestion into a popular recreational drink - and when Dubied’s daughter married a man called Henri-Louis Pernod, absinthe became the first drink of the Pernod dynasty - produced in Pontarlier on the French/Swiss border.

Sales of absinthe soared further when military doctors prescribed it as a malaria deterrent for French troops fighting in Algeria. It was also liked by locals who folded notes into the hands of French soldiers and claimed, with a crafty tap on the side of the nose, that absinthe helped cure their camel of worms.

Whether it had the same effect on the wealthy middle classes back in France is unclear, but absinthe certainly became the beverage of the bourgeoisie in the 1850s and 1860s - the age of the ‘l’heure vert’ when, between five and seven in the evening, absinthe was enjoyed as an elegant aperitif.

It was, however, the calm before the storm. The phylloxera plague (1862-1880s) slowly peeled off absinthe’s mask of respectability. Destroying the nation’s vineyards, it made wine and brandy prohibitively expensive and hard to get hold of.

Absinthe, meanwhile, was readily available and, costing ten centimes less than a glass of wine, it became the national drink at a time when, regrettably, France really needed one. By 1870, the empire had fallen, Napoleon III had abdicated, Paris was besieged by the Prussians and there wasn’t much to be happy about.

France drowned its sorrows in 60-per-cent proof absinthe and in the six months from October 1870 to May 1871, alcohol consumption increased five-fold. Absinthe production reached 220 million litres a year, yet a lot of this was badly-made moonshine verging on poison.

Prestigious producers such as Pernod highlighted the dangers of inferior absinthes made from toxic ingredients but it all got lost amid the deafening moral outrage. Absinthism, an affliction associated with tremors, restlessness, hallucinations and madness (and also known as alcoholism), was rife and the wheels were falling off French society like a clown car.

No longer the demure 'green fairy', absinthe took on far more notorious nom-de-plumes. It was called ‘bottled madness’, ‘the green curse’ and the ‘queen of poisons’ and ordered as 'une correspondence' (a ticket) to Charenton, a lunatic asylum on the outskirts of Paris.

Absinthe found itself in the cross-hairs of the do-gooders' gun; temperance leagues were founded; it was pilloried by political parties of all persuasions and the wine producers, unsurprisingly, were stoking the fires of furious indignation.

Eventually it was the threat posed by the Germans that finally led to the prohibition of absinthe. The consensus was that it would be easier to make soldiers out of toast than form an army of absinthe-minded Frenchmen. So, on August 16th 1914, two weeks after the outbreak of the First World War, the sale of Absinthe was officially banned in France and it was only fully legalised again in May 2011.

Jean Lanfray

Jean Lanfray was the man who got absinthe banned in Europe. In 1905, Lanfray treated himself to a couple of absinthes on the way home from work. When he got home, he discovered that his pregnant wife had not polished his shoes as he had asked.

So he took a rifle and shot her in the face. And then he killed his two daughters. Turning the gun on himself, he discovered he couldn’t reach the trigger so he tied a piece of string to it, pulled it, shot himself in the jaw and survived.

Proof, of sorts, that drinking is good for you - if Jean Lanfray had been sober, he would have succeeded in killing himself. When interrogated by police, a distraught Lanfray admitted consuming lots of wine and brandy on the day in question but the newspapers didn’t want to know. All they were interested in was absinthe and widespread, unbalanced media outrage ensued.

Lanfray’s actions signaled Absinthe’s end was nigh and by the beginning of the First World War, the green fairy was gone from much of Europe and America.

Wormwood

Wormwood’s most active ingredient, thujone, is widely attributed for adorning absinthe with its anarchic side. A menthol-like terpene, it’s said to be hallucinogenic and cause all manner of bad stuff, but there are no psychedelic properties in it at all and it won’t make you doolally.

Besides, closer inspection of nineteenth century absinthes have discover only trace amount of thujone and modern levels are capped by law – 35mg/kg. What gave absinthe its notorious reputation, according to biochemists, was possibly terpenes found absinthe’s other ingredients such as star anise, fennel and coriander.

But the main reason is that absinthe has a lot of alcohol in it. Simple as that. Anyone who says absinthe is hallucinogenic is deluding themselves. It’s not.

Angelique; Pernod; La Fee; C.F. Berger; La

_Clandestine

Recommendations

Absinthe contains many wonderful botanicals including fennel, sage and star anise - all of which are macerated in a neutral grain spirit or wine before the liquid is redistilled. This gives the spirit a complex flavour profile and one that is further enhanced with the addition of water.

When you add the water you get what is called a louche, or clouded effect, and as well as watering down what is a strong spirit, it unlocks a lot of aromas.

In terms of style, you would be best looking for the absinthe verte (green) and trying to find products that are naturally coloured by the herbs rather than artificially so.

Pernod (£35.74, thedrinkshop.com) absinthe is a solid starting point since it’s the grandfather of this category, with Pernod creating a commercial category for absinthe in 1805. It suffered from the ban but the original recipe inspires the current post-ban brand.

Another authentic effort is La Fee Parisienne Absinthe Superieure (£42.91, thedrinkshop.com) released last year and distilled in France, in conjunction with the absinthe museum in Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris, is a lush absinthe that comes with its own absinthe spoon.

Ted Breaux has taken on the modern-day re-creation of historic brands with his Jade Liqueurs selection, which includes Un Emile (thedrinkshop.com, £51). This absinthe is lighter in the flavours and not overly fragrant making it a great as an introductory absinthe.

One for more of a more confident palate is the C.F. Berger Verte Suisse 1898, (£63.71, thedrinkshop.com) taken by Jade from original recipes and fashioned as an original Swiss style. You’ll get a ballsy blast of wormwood, fennel, anise and hyssop which are given a booster shot with the addition of water.

Angelique (£55.48, thedrinkshop.com) was launched in 2005 and comes from Switzerland. It uses botanicals selected from the meadows around the base of the Alps and has picked up a number of awards; a decent brand for trying with water as you expand your absinthe knowledge.

La Clandestine (£47.98, thedrinkshop.com) is also interesting to look at as a blanche or la Bleue style. Based on a 1935 recipe it’s distilled by enthusiast Claude-Alain Bugnon in Couvet, Switzerland - the home of absinthe. A floral absinthe with a nice balance of sweet and bitter flavours.

If you’re looking for absinthe substitutes, then Pastis has all the anise and louche of an absinthe but no wormwood, and must by law include liquorice root. Henri Bardouin (£25.84, thedrinkshop.com) is renowned for its quality.

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