'What is there in absinthe that makes it a separate
cult? ... Even in ruin and in degradation it remains a thing apart: its victims
wear a ghastly aureole all their own, and in their peculiar hell yet gloat with
a sinister perversion of pride that they are not as other men.' -- Aleister Crowley
Athletic, muscular and projecting a surfeit of self-confidence,
Ted Breaux looks more like a personal trainer than a chemist, but appearances
can be deceiving.
Breaux has agreed to meet at Lola's restaurant to discuss his
new business venture, one greatly anticipated in certain quarters. After offering
a crushing handshake, he removes an unlabeled bottle from a cardboard box. He
pours a measure of pale green liquor into an antique short-stemmed glass. Over
the mouth of the glass he lays a flat silver spoon pierced with holes, and on
it he places a sugar cube. From a glass carafe, he carefully drips ice water
over the sugar -- drop by drop -- until it dissolves completely. The diluted
liquor turns an opalescent green and the glass explodes with a tantalizing bouquet
of licorice and alcohol.
The Green Fairy has arrived.
Since first yielding to her spell nine years ago, Breaux has
become one of the world's foremost experts on absinthe, the potent peridot spirit
flavored with anise and distilled from the toxic herb wormwood. Purported to
pack a narcotic-like punch, absinthe became the tipple of choice for artists
in fin-de-siecle Paris before it was banned throughout much of the world in
the first decades of the 20th century due to its allegedly deleterious effect
on the nervous system.
Absinthe was largely a European phenomenon, but it did take
root in one American city. New Orleans was the absinthe capital of North America,
with local brands such as Green Opal, Milky Way and Legendre (an antecedent
of the contemporary liqueur Herbsaint) catering to local tastes. By the time
federal marshals padlocked its doors at the height of Prohibition, the Old Absinthe
House had become probably the most famous bar in a city famous for bars.
Partly due to its notorious reputation and partly due to its
lengthy absence, absinthe has long been shrouded in mystery. Was it really a
mind-altering drug? Was it poisonous? Did it really drive men mad?
"Part of what I've done for the past nine
years is resolve the mystery," says the 36-year-old Breaux, a New Orleans native.
"It's taken some of the mystique out of it for me, but that's the expense of
truth."
The truth, he says, is absinthe got a bum
rap. Despite its sullied reputation as the hallucinogenic poison that wreaked
havoc in Belle Epoque society, Breaux argues that absinthe properly made with
quality ingredients is no more harmful than any other spirit. Now, after years
of historical and scientific research, Breaux is putting his money where his
mouth is. Disenchanted with contemporary brands, Breaux has painstakingly crafted
a line of absinthes he claims is the most faithful replication of classic absinthe
produced since the ban. Thanks to the Internet, bohemians, boulevardiers and
bon vivants the world over will soon be able to sample for themselves the tongue-numbing
spirit that enchanted Verlaine, Van Gogh, Picasso and Hemingway.
The essential ingredient of absinthe -- the
ingredient that distinguishes it from anise-flavored liqueurs such as Pernod
or Ricard -- is artemisia absinthium, commonly known as wormwood. The
medicinal use of wormwood dates back to at least 1600 B.C. The Egyptians used
the bitter herb as an antiseptic, a stimulant and tonic, and as a remedy for
fevers and menstrual pains. The Greeks prescribed it for jaundice, rheumatism
and anemia. The Romans used it to aid digestion, for upset stomach and to cure
bad breath. The leaves of the shrub-like perennial were also used to expel intestinal
worms, hence its English name.
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By the time federal marshals padlocked its doors at the height of Prohibition, the Old Absinthe House had become probably the most famous bar in a city famous for bars.
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Ironically, or perhaps appropriately, the
name absinthium is said to derive from the Greek apsinthion --
"undrinkable," presumably a reference to its extreme bitterness.
According to Barnaby Conrad's exhaustive account
Absinthe: History in a Bottle (Chronicle Books), the modern liquor known
as absinthe was first produced in the late 18th century in the Val-de-Travers
region of Switzerland, where a bounty of wormwood and other alpine herbs grows
wild. Pierre Ordinaire, a French doctor, is believed to have invented absinthe
in 1792 as a potent patent medicine, although "bon extrait d'absinthe"
had been advertised in the region as early as 1769. By the late 1790s, Ordinaire's
herbal elixir had already acquired the nickname la fee verte.
A Frenchman named Major Dubied, impressed
with the heady tonic, purchased the recipe and in 1797 went into business manufacturing
the spirit with his son-in-law, Henri-Louis Pernod. The success of their modest
Swiss distillery led Pernod in 1805 to split from his father-in-law and open
a new factory across the border in Pontarlier, France. Pernod Fils started small
-- it produced only 16 liters a day in its infancy -- but the spirit's growing
popularity led the company to increase production to 400 liters a day after
a few years. Pernod Fils' original recipe included six aromatic herbs: wormwood,
Roman wormwood (artemisia pontica), hyssop, lemon balm, fennel and anise.
Other herbs that would find their way into later recipes included angelica,
dittany, juniper, nutmeg and star anise.
The popularity of absinthe skyrocketed in
the mid 19th century, following the French conflict in North Africa. French
troops in Algeria drank absinthe to stave off fever and dysentery, and when
the war ended in 1847, they returned to Paris with a newfound taste for anise.
Other distillers sprang up to cash in on the growing market, but Pernod Fils
remained the standard.
Perhaps it was the spirituous potency or perhaps
the allegedly mind-altering effects. Whatever the reason, absinthe was embraced
with passion by the painters and poets of Belle Epoque France. The liquor appears,
either explicitly or implicitly, in Edouard Manet's The Absinthe Drinker
(1859), Edgar Degas' L'Absinthe (1876), Paul Gauguin's Dans Un Cafe
a Arles (1888), Vincent Van Gogh's Night Cafe at Arles (1888) and
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's Monsieur Boileau at the Cafe (1893). Toulouse-Lautrec
was known to prowl the Moulin Rouge with a hollowed-out cane filled with his
beloved muse, and Van Gogh allegedly cut off his ear after a prolonged drinking
binge. A decade later, Pablo Picasso, a more moderate bibber, embarked on a
series of absinthe-themed canvases that would chart his transition from Blue
Period to Cubism.
Among the literati to come under absinthe's
spell were Charles Baudelaire, Ernest Dowson, Edgar Allan Poe, Alfred Jarry,
Ernest Hemingway and W. Somerset Maugham, but the two writers most associated
with absinthe -- and most responsible for mythologizing it as the elixir of
bohemes -- were Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine. The pair carried on
a tumultuous, often violent affair against a hazy backdrop of intoxication.
Rimbaud believed that absinthe helped to eliminate the inhibitions that impeded
visionary experiences and inspiration; Verlaine, on the other hand, was just
a drunk.
In England, Oscar Wilde said this of his favorite
tipple: "After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After
the second, you see things as they are not. Finally you see things as they really
are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world."
In 1918, Aleister Crowley, the British occultist
and so-called "wickedest man in the world," composed a lyrical essay on absinthe
and aesthetics titled The Green Goddess. He wrote his essay not in Paris
or London but in New Orleans, the absinthe capital of North America. "Art is
the soul of life," he proclaimed, "and the Old Absinthe House is the heart and
soul of the old quarter of New Orleans."
"Absynthe" appears in New Orleans liquor advertisements
as early as 1837, but its popularity didn't take off until the latter half of
the 19th century with the opening of the barroom that would become the Old Absinthe
House. Built in 1806, the plaster and brick structure at the corner of Bourbon
and Bienville streets housed a series of businesses until 1846, when owners
Jacinto and P.O. Aleix opened a saloon called, in the parlance of the day, Aleix's
Coffee House.
In 1869 the Aleix brothers hired Cayetano
Ferrer, a bartender from the French Opera House, to run the bar, and in 1874
Ferrer took over the lease and rechristened it the Absinthe Room. Ferrer was
acclaimed for serving absinthe in the French style: marble fountains dripped
cold water onto lumps of sugar suspended on perforated spoons over glasses of
absinthe until the concoction achieved the tippler's desired level of sweetness
and dilution. Of particular importance to serious absintheurs was the
quality of the louche, the opalescent clouding that occurs when water
is added to absinthe. A fountain, adorned with the likeness of Napoleon, its
basin pitted by years of dripping water, still decorates the bar of what is
now known as Jean Lafitte's Old Absinthe House. Its spigots, however, have long
since run dry.
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The two writers most associated with absinthe -- and most responsible for mythologizing it as the elixir of bohemes -- were Paul Verlaine (pictured) and Arthur Rimbaud.
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Far from strictly a demimonde haunt, the Absinthe
Room attracted an impressive list of visitors, including presidents William
Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Aaron Burr, William
Thackeray, Jenny Lind and Oscar Wilde. The notorious dipsomaniac William Sidney
Porter allegedly derived his pen name there after repeatedly summoning the barkeep,
"Oh, Henry ..."
Long before Hurricanes and Hand Grenades ravaged
the French Quarter, the Absinthe House's signature drink, the absinthe frappé,
was the cocktail of the day. It was prepared by vigorously stirring absinthe
and simple syrup in a glass of crushed ice. After straining, a shot of soda
water finished it off. Composer Victor Herbert was so enchanted by the libation
he wrote a popular song about it: "At the first cool sip on your fevered lip/You
determine to live through the day/Life's again worthwhile as with a dawning
smile/You imbibe your absinthe frappé."
Another absinthe-based cocktail, the absinthe
Suissesse, combined absinthe with French vermouth, créme de menthe and
an egg white. Ernest Hemingway, who drank absinthe in Spain and wrote about
it in For Whom the Bell Tolls, contributed this Hemingwayesque recipe
to a 1935 collection: "Pour one jigger absinthe into a champagne glass. Add
iced champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three
to five of these slowly." Papa called it the Death in the Afternoon Cocktail.
The best-known absinthe-based cocktail today
is the Sazerac, which combines an absinthe substitute with rye whiskey, simple
syrup and Peychaud's bitters. Presidents Taft and Harding were reportedly among
the Sazerac's devotees.
Absinthe also found its way into kitchens;
it originally flavored Antoine's signature oysters Rockefeller. But on July
25, 1912, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Inspection Decision 147
effectively banned absinthe in America. It was a proactive response to reports
of absinthe abuse in Europe, and one supported by virtually no scientific evidence.
In New Orleans, the ban, like the subsequent
Prohibition, was more of an inconvenience than an interdiction. Elizabeth Anderson,
wife of the writer Sherwood Anderson, lived in New Orleans in the early 1920s
and recalled that absinthe was ubiquitous. "We all seemed to feel that Prohibition
was a personal affront and that we had a moral duty to undermine it," she wrote.
"The great drink of the day was absinthe, which was even more illegal than whisky
because of the wormwood in it. Bill Spratling [a teacher at Tulane University]
had bought 10 large jugs of it from some woman whose bootlegger husband had
died, and he shared his booty liberally with his friends. It was served over
crushed ice, and since it did not have much taste of alcohol that way, it was
consumed in quantities."
A 1934 article in Time magazine declared
New Orleans the absinthe capital of the world. L.E. Jung & Wulff Co. -- "the
big New Orleans absinthe firm," according to Time -- sold 1,500 cases
of it following the repeal of Prohibition until the company was notified that,
repeal or no repeal, absinthe was still illegal.
In 1933, Legendre & Co., a New Orleans-based
firm that had previously manufactured Legendre Absinthe, introduced Herbsaint,
a wormwood-free liqueur d'anis. A pun on the French pronunciation of
absinthe meaning literally "holy herb," Herbsaint remains the city's most popular
absinthe substitute. The liqueur's label, however, quietly alludes to its origins.
Surrounding an illustration of the Old Absinthe House is an embossed pattern
of silvery wormwood.
Today, the French Quarter's epicenter of absinthe
culture is not the Old Absinthe House but Pirate's Alley Cafe. The cafe serves
Absente, a wormwood-free liqueur modeled after absinthe, in the French style,
and a painting of the seductive Green Fairy peers out from behind the bar. Not
coincidentally, Pirate's Alley Cafe is also a favorite haunt of goths. In America,
absinthe enjoys a close association with the gothic subculture. While it does
show up in the fiction of Anne Rice and Poppy Z. Brite, the connection isn't
so much about vampires as it is about Belle Epoque romanticism, and nothing
evokes the spirit of the fin de siecle like absinthe.
As a side note, the former Old Absinthe Bar,
located at Bourbon and Conti streets, derived its name from the
fact that the cypress bar and absinthe fountains were removed from
the Old Absinthe House following Prohibition and later installed
at the new location. The Old Absinthe Bar closed in 1998 and a daiquiri
shop took its place, but a reminder of the shop's former tenant
remains. Inexplicably, the Old Absinthe House's antique absinthe
fountains adorn the shop's counter, eliciting bemused reactions
from daiquiri sipping patrons. The current owner of Jean Lafitte's
Old Absinthe House, Jober't Salem, recently purchased the former
Old Absinthe Bar, offering at least some hope that the antique fountains
will one day be returned to their original home.
If absinthe had remained the province of bohemians
and the bourgeois, it likely never would have been banned. But in the 1880s,
in the wake of a wine shortage, it crossed over to the working classes. Many
Frenchmen turned to absinthe as an inexpensive alternative and remained loyal
to it even when wine again became available. The period from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
became known as l'heure verte -- the green hour. At cafes from Montmartre
to Montparnasse, one could find policemen, laborers, butchers and bankers, all
enjoying the elaborate absinthe ritual, and all getting royally plastered.
In 1874, the French consumed 700,000 liters
of absinthe. By 1910, the figure had jumped to an astonishing 36,000,000 liters.
Given the potency of absinthe -- it was typically between 50 and 75 percent
alcohol -- and the tendency of bibbers to drink several in a sitting, each diluted
with less water than the one before, France had a legitimate social problem
on its hands. The Green Fairy had become the Green Curse.
The age of absinthe came crashing to an end
on the night of Aug. 28, 1905. A French laborer, Jean Lafray, murdered his pregnant
wife and two young children after drinking absinthe. Despite the fact Lafray
had consumed no less than six different kinds of spirits in the 16 hours leading
up to the murders -- everything from brandy to créme de menthe -- absinthe
was blamed.
It didn't help matters that absinthe had already
become the subject of intense debate in France. Dr. Valentin Magnan, a distinguished
French physician and anti-alcohol lobbyist, conducted a series of studies that
found absinthe affected the central nervous system and caused convulsions, hallucinations
and insanity. A new term, absinthism, was coined. Magnan's findings are
suspect, but they became a rallying cry for France's growing temperance movement.
An unholy alliance formed between the temperance society, which blamed distilled
spirits in general and absinthe in particular for the moral degeneration of
France, and wine producers, who saw in absinthe a threat to their livelihood.
(Even at its height of popularity, absinthe never comprised more than 3 percent
of all alcohol consumed in France.)
In the wake of the Lafray case, absinthe was
banned in Switzerland and, despite a dearth of scientific evidence, the United
States, Italy, France and Belgium followed suit. Distillers turned to producing
wormwood-free anise-flavored liqueurs, called pastis, to satisfy the public's
taste. Pernod Fils opened a distillery in Tarragona, Spain, where absinthe remained
legal, before eventually being subsumed by the modern pastis company Pernod-Ricard.
(Despite claims to the contrary, the liqueur d'anis Pernod is not
absinthe minus the wormwood.) In Switzerland, many absinthe makers went underground.
To this day, bootlegged la bleue absinthe is a specialty in the Val-de-Travers
region.
Was absinthe more dangerous than other spirits?
Probably not. While thujone, the toxic component of wormwood, has been shown
to cause epileptiform convulsions in animals, it occurs in absinthe in such
low concentrations that one would have to ingest a stupefying volume of alcohol
to approach an unsafe level of thujone. There is also evidence to suggest that
some of the symptoms attributed to absinthism might have actually been
the result of poisoning from toxic adulterants -- copper salts to add color
and antimony trichloride to increase the louche effect -- in cheap absinthe.
Conrad and other absinthe scholars agree that the most dangerous chemical in
absinthe is really ethanol -- drinking alcohol.
In the years since the ban, clandestine absinthe
making has become a popular hobby in virtually every self-respecting bohemia.
Recipes for bootleg versions abound, most of which involve steeping wormwood
and other herbs -- even marijuana -- in vodka or Pernod. Do-it-yourself absinthe
kits, with seductively lurid warnings, sell on eBay for about $15.
The absinthe revival began in earnest a little
over a decade ago with the opening of the Czech Republic to the West. Tourists
peregrinating Prague discovered Hill's Absinth, a caustic, flavorless, mouthwash-green
liquor that appeared to satisfy Westerners' most ghastly impression of what
absinthe must have been like. Czechoslavakia had apparently never banned absinthe,
and neither, it turned out, had the United Kingdom, where absinthe consumption
had never been a problem. A company called Green Bohemia (founded by Jesus and
Mary Chain/Black Box Recorder guitarist John Moore) began importing Hill's to
England in 1998, and absinthe became the hip tipple of yet another fin de siecle.
Absinthe figured prominently in the recent films Moulin Rouge and From
Hell, and celebrities like Johnny Depp, Trent Reznor, Eminem and Marilyn
Manson reportedly have it shipped from England by the case.
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Ted Breaux and Jade Liqueurs Co. Ltd. graphics and Web site manager J. Justin Sledge sample BreauxÍs replica of Edouard Pernod absinthe.
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So it is with estimable graciousness that
Ted Breaux credits Hill's with kick-starting the absinthe revival. "That's as
far as the credit goes because their product is horrible," he says. "It has
nothing in common whatsoever with original absinthe. It's an entirely different
product."
Breaux, who works as an environmental microbiologist
for a Canada-based company, first became interested in absinthe about nine years
ago when he saw Barnaby Conrad's book. His curiosity piqued, he found an 1855
recipe for absinthe in a Scientific American article and decided to sample
it for himself. "It was absolutely horrible," he recalls. "I couldn't believe
people drank it. It wasn't until I was actually able to taste original absinthe
that I realized there was a lot of problems, a lot of errors and assumptions."
In 1998, through an estate sale, Breaux obtained
an antique bottle of pre-ban Pernod Fils. When he sampled the pale green liquor,
it was a revelation. The subtlety and complexity of its flavor were leagues
beyond the contemporary products he'd tasted from Spain and other countries
where absinthe is legal. Unlike the cheap modern adaptations, Pernod Fils was
made with whole herbs rather than extracted oils. It contained no added sugar,
and its delicate green hue was achieved not through artificial coloring but
through a chlorophyllic process.
Breaux the chemist went to work. Through a
process of analytical and organoleptic testing, he succeeded in reverse-engineering
Pernod Fils and other classic pre-ban absinthes. "Herbs that are 100 years old
don't taste like fresh herbs," he says. "Part of the trick is learning how to
recognize the taste of herbs after they go through that aging process. It was
difficult to crack, but I got pretty good with it."
Good enough to go public. Through La Fee Verte,
a Web site dedicated to absinthe, Breaux met chemist Don Walsh. Walsh, a New
Orleans native living in Thailand, shared with Breaux a fascination with absinthe
and an interest in authenticity. The two hashed out a business plan and founded
a company, Jade Liqueurs Co. Ltd., to produce Breaux's meticulous recreations.
From the onset, they decided that absolute authenticity would be their goal.
"No one has gotten it right," Breaux says. "The market that they appeal to is
more young people who want to get drunk. That's not our market. Our market is
connoisseurs."
With a manufacturing facility in Thailand
ready to roll and the possibility of a distillery in France on the horizon,
Jade Liqueurs' absinthe appears close to becoming a reality.
Breaux discounts the popular notion that thujone
is absinthe's only -- or even primary -- active ingredient. (See sidebar: "The
Thujone Connection"). "There's a lot more to absinthium, the herb, than thujone,"
he says. "There are a lot of things in it that hardly anyone had studied."
Those nebulous compounds, as well as those
in all its herbal ingredients, might be the key to what is often referred to
as absinthe's "secondary effect," the particular sensation drinkers experience
above and beyond that of alcohol inebriation. "The thing about absinthe is,
despite the alcohol you feel very lucid," Breaux says. "If you look at the different
herbs that are used in absinthe, they're employed in very high concentrations,
and those herbs have different effects. Some are excitatory, some are sedative.
So it's kind of like an herbal speedball. It's a very subtle thing. Absinthe
is not like taking an illicit drug. That's all highly exaggerated."
Absinthe may not be a drug, but it remains
very much illegal in the United States. According to Breaux and other sellers,
it appears to occupy a legal status similar to Cuban cigars: while the importation
and sale of absinthe is restricted, its possession and consumption is not. For
better or for worse, absinthe typically flies below the radar of the Customs
Service. One does run the risk of having his or her shipment confiscated when
ordering from overseas, but in La Fee Verte's popular absinthe discussion forum,
there has yet to be a report of a U.S.-bound shipment running afoul of customs
agents.
Jade Liqueurs plans to release at least six
different products. Among the first slated for production are Absinthe Pontarlier,
a reproduction of the very first commercially produced absinthe; Absinthe Edouard,
a reproduction of Edouard Pernod, a classic brand from the turn of the century;
Absinthe Nouvelle-Orleans, an adaptation of a brand popular in New Orleans;
and Absinthe Gorgon, a unique absinthe Breaux crafted with the gothic crowd
in mind.
Jade absinthes won't come cheap. The cost
including shipping is expected to run a little under $100 a bottle -- but Breaux
says the results will be worth it. "No liquor manufacturing company today is
set up to make absinthe the way it was made 100 years ago," Breaux says. "The
herbs we use are grown, harvested, cut and processed to our standards. This
is really a niche product. "
After taking more than an hour to explicate
the history, chemistry and industry of absinthe, Breaux has one more point to
make: it tastes good. "It's wonderful," he says. "Clean, stimulating, and considering
how strong it is, very light on the system. I'm not a big drinker, but once
you develop a taste for it, nothing else is the same."
