Absinthe is the most mythical of all forms of alcohol, and there are more misconceptions surrounding it, than facts describing it.
The main reason for all this confusion, is the fact that it was vilified and banned from most of Europe and the US in 1915. It was made legal again as late as 2010 in some countries, so its modern history is fairly short. Most Norwegians still think it is an illegal beverage.
In 1875, wine production was dealt a severe blow, as a particularly nasty grape disease hit most of the wine producing areas. The effect was the supply of wine was decreased and price increased. This made most alcohol drinkers look to other beverages for their happy times, especially the lower classes.
Absinthe in particular fancied the interest of the bohemians in Paris, a hugely influential group socially, as everyone knew Hemingway, Baudelaire and Joyce, and their cohorts as the stars of the era, and wanted to drink like them.
As they drank the Green Fairy (Absinthe had many nicknames), so did many others.
So many, in fact, that it threatened wines status as the drink of choice for all the french. Wine producers were hugely influential in France, mainly an agricultural society (apart from Paris) - and used their influence on politicians, as did the prohibitionists and Social Conservatives, to vilify and demonize absinthe, in order to return to Wine as the drink of choice. And they succeeded. Absinthe was deemed illegal in 1915, and was kept illegal in France until 2010.
Wormwood in Absinthe
With the exception of Satan, Belsebub or Lucifer(The devil is known by many names), few things have been blamed for as much wrongdoing as wormwood. Apparantly it made Vincent Van Gogh cut of his own ear, it got artist Toulose-Lautrec locked up in psychiatric hospital and Ernest Hemingway’s suicide had nothing to do with his depressions and alcoholism, but everything to do with the consumption of wormwood. In reality the wormwood in absinthe, is in such small quantities that it can’t do any harm. Wormwood contains small amounts thujone, which in very high doses can be toxic. “Luckily” you would die from alcohol poisoning long before the thujone would do you any harm. For the record, that man who killed his family in Switzerland in 1905, and who triggered bans of absinthe, was under the influence of absinthe -- which he had been drinking since he woke up that morning and throughout the rest of the day (and the day before that and the day before that).
When producers of Absinthe lost their main product, they had to turn the coin, and find something else to do.
So, Anise and Pastis were created. Fairly similar to Absinthe (the recipe was more or less the same, only lacking wormwood; the herb that was claimed to induce hallucinations), pastis quickly became popular, and a natural part of the culinary culture of France, though never as dominating as Absinthe, as wine production had managed to fight off the grape disease and rebuild its production and once again was available in huge amounts. Today, in Norway, Absinthe is rare to come by, but Pastis is more common to see in a barback. It’s up to bartenders and the big liquor companies to change the public eye on absinthe. Remember not to drink too much, and dilute it with water.
Herbsaint (50% ABV)