Description Of Absinthe
Famous artists and writers like Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway, Gauguin, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Degas and many more enjoyed drinking Absinthe.
Absinthe is a strong alcoholic beveragedistilled at high proof but generally served diluted with iced water or in cocktails. Herbs and essential oils including wormwood (Artemisia Absinthium), aniseed and fennel is used for flavoring Absinthe liquor and it is usually made from a wine alcohol base. One can also use hyssop, lemon balm, star anise, angelica, juniper, nutmeg, dittany, calamus root and mint in the making of Absinthe.
Information about Absinthe History
Absinthe has a very long and interesting history. Wormwood has been used in medicine since ancient times. According to the legend Absinthe was created by a French doctor, Dr Pierre Ordinaire in the late 18th century, in the Swiss town of Couvet. Ordinaire used it on his patients as a medicine.
Henri-Louis Pernod distilled Absinthe by using the Absinthe recipe in Couvet and under the name of Pernod Fils in Pontarlier. It is said that the Pernod company was producing 30,000 liters of Absinthe every day by the middle of the 19th century!
Absinthe was a popular drink in most of the countries. In France Absinthe overtook wine as the favorite drink. There were concerns about health and the effects of Absinthe simultaneously. The Bohemian culture of Montmartre was combined with the liquor. According to the people’s thought thujone was a psychoactive resulting in psychedelic effects, convulsions, insanity, brain damage and death.
Van Gogh’s insanity and his suicide, murder of a family and the rising rate of alcohol abuse in France were the events for which Absinthe was blamed. The USA and France restricted Absinthe in the year 1912 and 1915 respectively. Other countries also restricted Absinthe.
Absinthe Revival
During the ban, people either drank Absinthe substitutes, such as Pernod Pastis, or bought bootleg Absinthe. Studies and research proved that the claims made about Absinthe were not true.
Studies showed that effects of Absinthe was same as consuming other strong alcoholic beverages and the thujone content in Absinthe is not harmful for anyone.
In the late 20th century Absinthe with up to 10mg/kg of thujone was authorized in the EU and with up to 10 ppm it was legalized in the USA .
France, home of Pernod’s original Absinthestill has a ban on products labeled “Absinthe” and France also strictly regulates drinks containing fenchone, a chemical in fennel which is a key ingredient in Absinthe. Absinthe containing only up to 5mg per liter of fenchone is allowed in France.
In these times of revival, it is possible to order Absinthe online, buy it in a liquor shop or buy real wormwood Absinthe essences to make your very own Green Fairy – see AbsintheKit.Visit AbsintheKit.com for more information about Absinthe essences. They also sell replica Absinthe glasses and spoonslike a Pontarlier glass and Eiffel Tower spoon.
