Bonjour 'green fairy': Absinthe returns to France

Absinthe is back in France after a century’s exile – out and finally embraced. No longer will it have to apologetically masquerade as a drink “flavored with the absinthe plant” as it has for almost a decade. About fifteen distillers who sell the both romanticised and vilified drink can now call absinthe by its real name. In mid-April, the French Senate voted to repeal prohibition of the drink nicknamed the “green fairy”.

In 1999, almost a hundred years after it was banned in 1915, France legalised production of what was thought to be the ‘green loony drink.’ A hallucinogenic mind-bender, that caused people to kill, and in Vincent Van Gogh’s case bite artist friend Gauguin’s left ear off . Yet the same drink also inspired Van Gogh to paint Starry Night, and that  Hemingway, Oscar Wild, Guy de Maupassant, Picasso dreamt in swirling green translucence of the temptress.

One glass made you heady, two unfettered creativity and the third drove you crazy, they said way back then. “A glass of absinthe is as poetical as anything in the world, what difference is there between a glass of absinthe and a sunset,” wrote Oscar Wilde, probably on his second.

But back in the 18th century, France was the absinthe capital of the world. Etymologically French, it was supposedly created as an all-purpose remedy by a French doctor living in Switzerland named Dr. Pierre Ordinaire. It later became popular in the 1840s as a curative for malaria for French troops. By 1910, the French were drinking 36 million litres of absinthe per year – or so claims Wikipedia – and it was later banned in 1915.

Accused  of causing a collective psychosis and decadence in the French society, and victim of smear campaign by wine and brandy producers whose thunder the Green Fairy charmingly stole, absinthe became illegal . It’s taken the French a hundred years to forgive sweet absinthe’s its troubling past, while the rest of Europe revived it in 1988. Even America,  once known for importing thousands of litres of the good stuff in the 19th century,   lifted the ban in November 2007.

Had it not been for the Swiss campaigning to obtain EU recognition for the drink as a regional product of Val-de-Travers, the French would perhaps have stayed characteristically complacent. Now France claims the “spiritual home” of absinthe is instead the French town of Pontarlier.

And it’s about time.

Stories of thujone-induced hallucinations thought to be caused  by absinthe have been proven a myth; the drink is no more or less dangerous than whisky, vodka or gin.  Dr. Jean-Pierre Luaute, a psychiatrist who has written scientific articles on the subject, says, “The nearly unanimous view of experts is that the toxicity of absinthe comes exclusively from its high alcohol content.”

Even though absinthe has been manufactured in France since 1999, the laws required that the drink not mimic the pre-ban recipe. That’s until two distillers, Franck Choisne and Ted Breaux – who had fought the legal battle in the US and overturned the ban of absinthe there in 2007 – revolted last year. They had to stop production of their most popular absinthe not because of the allegedly problematic wormwood but the harmless fennel. They went to court in 2010 and won yet again. Distillers could keep the original recipe … but not call it the real thing until now.

Absinthe’s storied reputation has been smeared by association. First with unstable Van Gogh, and then Edgar Degas who painted a gloomy portrait – L’Absinthe,   Jean Lanfray murdered his family before attempting suicide  after drinking absinthe in 1905.  And the association with depravity and destruction continues to this day in Hollywood movies, be it A-rated movies like Bram Stroker’s Dracula, Moulin Rouge, From Hell, Murder by Numbers, or Eurotrip. Even self-styled goth anti-Christ rocker Marilyn Manson is marketing his own red absinthe called Mansinthe.

The step to legalise the drink, will hopefully correct much of the misapprehension. As Clement Arnoux, an absinthe drinker and enthusiast, told the BBC,  “I will not be seen as a drug addict anymore… It changes everything from the point of view of my friends and family.”

A South American daily writes that drinkers in Paris bars and bistros are only beginning to  get “reacquainted with the drink”:

“You don’t find it too much in bars in Paris,” said Mickey, the owner of Cantada II bar in the 11th Arrondissement. On its Facebook page the bar calls itself the biggest absinthe bar in France, with more than 25 different bottles behind the bar. “Some people are surprised to see it, they think it’s still illegal,” said Mickey, who uses only one name.

Even though absinthe is available across Europe and the US, the drink that attracted the existentially stranded, remains alluring for its forbidden quality. Salon quotes Michelle Nolan,  a bartender in New Orleans’ French Quarter.

“There are three types of customers who come in here looking for it,” she says. “The first is the frat guy, who maybe saw Johnny Depp drink it in a movie. They ask for shots of absinthe, and nine out of 10 times we don’t serve them, because you really don’t want to shoot a drink that costs $20… The second type is literary – their favorite author wrote about it; they want to know if there really is a muse. And the third is connoisseurs, for whom cost is no object. But they like sitting at the bar and talking about this drink they know everything about.”

And then there are those enamoured by the ritual of it – green liquid in glass turns milky as cold water drips through sugar melting cubes. Or if it’s Boho, then absinthe soaked sugar cubes on fire go into a shot of absinthe,  kicking up a sizzling flambe.

The bad in the good news, though, is that prohibition will take that  devil in the bottle with it. And there might end the romance.

P.S.: If you too are looking for tryst with the Green Fairy, here are a number of snappy absinthe recipes.