Are you familiar with the history of absinthe and the legends associated with this drink? It was once rumored that he was the cause of insanity. No other drink has caused as much fear, awe and charm as absinthe.
At the end of August 1905, tragedy struck the small Swiss village of Communy. Buried three people - a mother and her two daughters. Their father, Jean Landfray, sobbed, assuring everyone that he did not remember how he was able to shoot his family. He said that he had been drinking all the previous day. He began at dawn with a glass of absinthe diluted with water, then drank another, while working in the vineyard, he added several glasses of wine for lunch, heading home, went to a cafe and took black coffee with brandy, and when he came home drank a liter of wine. The wife watched this picture with disgust. She called him a lazy drunkard, after which the man lost his temper, took a rifle and shot at his wife, daughter Rosa jumped out at the noise, and the next bullet went to her. Then he went to the room where two-year-old Blanche slept, and finished his dirty work.
Swiss poster from 1910.
The villagers concluded that absinthe was the cause of the tragedy. The press told about this story, petitions to ban the drink began to collect throughout the country, and protests against the use of absinthe began. La Gazette de Lausanne, a French-language Swiss newspaper, called him "the root cause of all the bloodthirsty crimes of the century." Lanfrey's murder was called "absinthe".
Swiss psychiatrist Albert Maheim, speaking at the trial, said that the constant use of this drink could lead to "ferocity of character and blind rage, a man who loved his family." The trial lasted one day. Lanfrey was found guilty, but he did not stay in prison for so long. Two days later, the man committed suicide after learning that his wife was pregnant with a boy.
"Absinthe". E. Degas.
In 1908, Switzerland declared absinthe banned. Belgium banned it back in 1905, and the Netherlands in 1910. In 1912, the United States declared him "one of man's worst enemies." By 1915, the "green fairy" was expelled even from France, which had long been the center of absinthe culture. By the beginning of the First World War, absinthe had a clear reputation as a green demon.
However, the drink was not always “devil in a bottle”. The French name comes from the Greek word absinthe, which the Greeks used not so much for an intoxicating drink as for a medicine produced by soaking wormwood leaves in wine or alcohol. Hippocrates prescribed this tincture for menstrual pains, anemia, rheumatism and jaundice. The healing properties of wormwood are mentioned in ancient texts dating back to 1500 BC, for example, the ancient Egyptian Papyrus of Ebers (1550 BC).
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Advertising poster for absinthe Beucler.
Guy Pliny Secundus, better known as Pliny the Elder, noted in Natural History that the winner of the chariot race was served absinthe. It was an honorable award.
The first absinthe, which included green anise and fennel, was made in the 18th century. It was developed in 1792 by the French physician Pierre Ordiner, who lived in the city of Couve (Switzerland). The recipe was later passed on to the Enrio sisters, who sold it as a healing elixir. Then a certain entrepreneur Dubier acquired the formula from them in 1797. Together with his family, he opened his own distillery for the production of a drink. Things went well, and in 1805 they opened a second distillery in Pontarlier. Their brand was one of the most popular in the country until absinthe was banned in 1914.
A poster by Henri Privas-Livemont.
The popularity of absinthe grew throughout the 40s of the 19th century, it was given to the French troops as a preventive measure for malaria, and the soldiers loved this taste. Absinthe became so available in public places by the 1860s that the time after 5 pm got its name - l'Heure verte (green hour). The drink was consumed by all segments of the population - from Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas, Monet, Picasso, Guy de Maupassant to ordinary workers. By the 1880s, mass production led to a sharp drop in prices, and by 1910, the French were consuming 36 million liters of absinthe a year. They consumed 5 billion liters of wine annually.
Among the drink's admirers were Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In the 1990s, absinthe was again allowed.
Pavel Romanutenko
