Imagine you are a poor artist living in France in the 1800s. You enjoy practicing your art, and occasionally sell works, but each day you look forward to night time when you can meet up with your friends and share stories, conversation and a drink. You are a mixed group made up of artists, musicians, philosophers and others who enjoy the bohemian life, but you are brought together by your love of intelligence, creativity and the green fairy.
The way in which this post came about is slightly different to the norm, and although I did show the older children the absinthe spoon in the photos above, it was actually these children who sparked the interest in absinthe. A couple of the older boys had heard stories of or even seen ‘the green fairy’ in various movies and books and wanted to know exactly what this mysterious creature and the drink she represented was. They were amazed to discover it was an adults only drink, especially as they had encountered it in literature and movies for teens and even children! They thought the spoon itself was beautiful, and the story was fascinating, but swore they would never go near the famous drink.
Although most famous as an alcoholic drink enjoyed by ‘the bohemians’ in Paris in the late 19th century, Absinthe actually started out as a medicinal elixir (which was, and still is emerald green). In 1792 it was created by a French doctor who at the time was living in Switzerland. His name was Pierre Ordinaire and his aim was to create an elixir using the wormwood plant. Wormwood had long been known as a useful medicinal plant and even today it is still used in some remedies. Essentially, absinthe was created as an easier way for people to access and use wormwood as a healing aid. In 1797 Major Dubied purchased the recipe and began commercially producing absinthe with his son in law Henri-Louis Pernod. By 1805 the business was so successful that a bigger production facility was needed and Pernod moved the business from Switzerland back into France. Absinthe may have begun as a medical elixir but it had always been distilled in a base of alcohol. By the 1850s it was the popular drink for the aristocracy and by 1870 it was drunk by all levels of French society. Poets, artists, writers and even composers also used the drink to seek inspiration for their creative works. The 'green fairy' as it was known was popular with such creative types as it was believed to induce greater creativity.
Absinthe wasn’t just popular in France though –in the mid to late 1800s it was imported into America in huge quantities and also locally produced while the craze had caught on throughout Europe by the end of the 19th century. Drinking absinthe was not just about the drink itself, which on its own was quite bitter. There was a ritual involved and this is where the absinthe spoon comes in. The spoon would be held over the glass and a cube of sugar would be placed over the perforations in the spoon. The absinthe would then be poured over the sugar and sweetened, then fall through the holes in the spoon and into the glass below. Bitterness was not the only problem with absinthe though. In the 20th century, Absinthe was banned by many countries, due to not only the extremely high alcohol content, but also one of the chemicals produced by the wormwood – thujone. Thujone is a psychoactive compound which can cause hallucinations and also lead to seizures and other negative effects (including death). The amount present in absinthe was probably never enough to cause real serious effects – in fact you were more likely to poison yourself with the alcohol content than the thujone! Today Absinthe is no longer banned in many countries, but the amount of Thujone allowed in the spirit is strictly controlled.