The thing is, absinthe was quite strong (often ~120 proof – nothing you can’t get today by any means and there’s a lot of popular whiskies that bottle even stronger). It had a whole ritual around drinking it involving fountains/bloom. Importantly, in its heyday, it was popular among the young and arts types because it was just a regular old fad. It was trendy.
But most important, it was popular during a moment in history where alcohol abuse was RAMPANT. One of the drunkest times in history. It was a really bad time that often gets elided over, but the mid 19th century had bonkers alcohol consumption. People were routinely drinking a pint of strong spirits with breakfast and then continuing through the day.
So the tea-totalers slandered it. They made shit up. They said it made you hallucinate, abandon all virtues, go into rages, blah blah blah. Every known thing any drug could do to you, absinthe could too, according to the anti-alcohol lobby. People were literally dying of alcohol toxicity routinely, so the stories were easy to believe. And absinthe developed this almost mystical reputation for being different from other kinds of spirits in the effects it would have on consumers.
A reputation it still has today. People STILL think it is/was illegal, even recently, because it was a hallucinogen. The urban legend that some particular ingredient in it – often the wormwood – is a unique and special substance capable of things nothing else can do. It still has this weird mythology around it.
Meanwhile, anisette spirits much like it are honestly super common all around the Mediterranean and likely the world. Herbsaint, Ouzo, Pastis/Richard, Sambuca, Arak, and any number of Aquavits or Aguardientes. Most of them involve the same kind of ritualized drinking/bloom that absinthe does, too. But none of them have the mythology (+ frequent highly artificial coloring) that absinthe does, so none share it’s ridiculous reputation.
I do like it though. Absinthe limeade is my go-to summer tall drink.
I agree with most of your points, but just to clarify for everyone: Absinthe was definitely illegal for a while, 1908 Switzerland chose to vote in favor of an an Absinthe prohibition (in effect starting 1910), France followed 1914 or 1915. It has been widely available again since 1998 (2005 in Switzerland, respectively).
And absolutely, while the Thujone in wormwood oil might cause spasms in extremely high doses (in quantities not found in Absinthe), the behaviors observed are most likely simply caused by the high alcohol content, although consumers getting poisoned by copper sulfate and antimony (due to a shoddy production process) has also been listed as a potential cause, although that wouldn’t explain the frequency and spread of behavior attributed to the Thujone content in Absinthe.
Yeah, there were historic cases dating to the prohibition era/early 20th century. And there were historic laws – largely unenforced – that stayed on the books for a while. Laws based on total nonsense. It just got caught up as part of garden-variety moral panic.
There’s definitely still an air around the spirit that it is somehow more illicit and special. Which it… really isn’t.
Absinthe is such a strange mythos.
The thing is, absinthe was quite strong (often ~120 proof – nothing you can’t get today by any means and there’s a lot of popular whiskies that bottle even stronger). It had a whole ritual around drinking it involving fountains/bloom. Importantly, in its heyday, it was popular among the young and arts types because it was just a regular old fad. It was trendy.
But most important, it was popular during a moment in history where alcohol abuse was RAMPANT. One of the drunkest times in history. It was a really bad time that often gets elided over, but the mid 19th century had bonkers alcohol consumption. People were routinely drinking a pint of strong spirits with breakfast and then continuing through the day.
So the tea-totalers slandered it. They made shit up. They said it made you hallucinate, abandon all virtues, go into rages, blah blah blah. Every known thing any drug could do to you, absinthe could too, according to the anti-alcohol lobby. People were literally dying of alcohol toxicity routinely, so the stories were easy to believe. And absinthe developed this almost mystical reputation for being different from other kinds of spirits in the effects it would have on consumers.
A reputation it still has today. People STILL think it is/was illegal, even recently, because it was a hallucinogen. The urban legend that some particular ingredient in it – often the wormwood – is a unique and special substance capable of things nothing else can do. It still has this weird mythology around it.
Meanwhile, anisette spirits much like it are honestly super common all around the Mediterranean and likely the world. Herbsaint, Ouzo, Pastis/Richard, Sambuca, Arak, and any number of Aquavits or Aguardientes. Most of them involve the same kind of ritualized drinking/bloom that absinthe does, too. But none of them have the mythology (+ frequent highly artificial coloring) that absinthe does, so none share it’s ridiculous reputation.
I do like it though. Absinthe limeade is my go-to summer tall drink.
I agree with most of your points, but just to clarify for everyone: Absinthe was definitely illegal for a while, 1908 Switzerland chose to vote in favor of an an Absinthe prohibition (in effect starting 1910), France followed 1914 or 1915. It has been widely available again since 1998 (2005 in Switzerland, respectively).
And absolutely, while the Thujone in wormwood oil might cause spasms in extremely high doses (in quantities not found in Absinthe), the behaviors observed are most likely simply caused by the high alcohol content, although consumers getting poisoned by copper sulfate and antimony (due to a shoddy production process) has also been listed as a potential cause, although that wouldn’t explain the frequency and spread of behavior attributed to the Thujone content in Absinthe.
Yeah, there were historic cases dating to the prohibition era/early 20th century. And there were historic laws – largely unenforced – that stayed on the books for a while. Laws based on total nonsense. It just got caught up as part of garden-variety moral panic.
There’s definitely still an air around the spirit that it is somehow more illicit and special. Which it… really isn’t.