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Dancing with The Green Fairy


l'absinthe by Degas

L'absinthe by Degas 1876

The Drink of Paris


 This is the story a drink a drink that was once considered so dangerous that it was banned in France and several other countries for many years. Absinthe or la fee verte (the green fairy) as it is affectionately known became extremely popular in late 19th Century where it was immortalised by impressionist artists and writers around Paris who captured it in their work and consumed it in large quantities. Absinthe is an alcoholic drink derived from several herbs including anise, fennel and wormwood which has a distinctive green colour (the green fairy) which becomes cloudy when water is added. The recipe for distilled absinthe originated in Switzerland at the end of the 18th Century and at first it was produced as an elixir or medicine by Pierre Ordinaire. The recipe was bought out by Henri Louis Pernod in 1797 who opened the first absinthe distillery in Couvet, Switzerland. Pernod and moved to a larger distillery in Pontarlier, France in 1805.

Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder


By the middle of the 18th Century the drink became so popular that Parisian cafés were holding green hours (l’heure verte) at 5pm for workers to enjoy an absinthe after a day’s labour. It soon became a symbol of decadence and bohemianism particularly in Paris and the fashionable neighbourhood of Montmartre. Many Artists and writers of Paris considered ansinthe a drink that stimulated creativity, Van Gogh, Toulouse Lautrec, Baudelaire, Manet, Gaugin, Degas (who painted L’absinthe in 1876 which is now in the Musée d’Orsay) and many others danced with the green fairy. It was also one of the few alcoholic drinks popular amongst women at that time.

Too Dangerous to Drink


The popular tide turned against absinthe in the late 19th Century.It was blamed for many social woes of the day and it was claimed that absinthe had a hallucinogenic properties although there is no scientific evidence for this it may have indeed gained a narcotic effect when other chemicals, or drugs such as opium where added to the drink.

Horrible Murder and Ban


Then in 1905 a murder was committed in Switzerland that stunned the world. Jean Lanfray killed his pregnant wife and children in a drunken frenzy after. Absinthe was blamed and the drink itself was judged as being equally culpable as the murderer even though Lanfray had only consumed 2 glasses of absinthe in the morning while taking large quantities of wine and spirits before the attack. A petition in Switzerland quickly gathered 82,000 signatures and a ban followed. Soon after the drink became the subject of a ban in other countries too; The Netherlands in 1909 the United States in 1912 and France in 1915

Available Once Again


These days if you wander into the bars and cafes in Paris you can, once again, see people enjoying absinthe based drinks. It became common again from the late 1980s onwards when the European Law on drinks was applied in France. Technically, however, the 1915 law has never been repealed but as the law only stated that beverages that call themselves ‘absinthe’ were prohibited the French producers get around this by labelling their drinks à base de plantes d'absinthe ('wormwood-based spirits'). The laws relating to absinthe were repealed in most other countries, except interestingly the United States where to this day it still cannot legally be sold .

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