If you’ve seen the movie Moulin Rouge, you might think you’re meant to light the sugar cube on fire.
Go too fast, and you’ll release the oils all at once and ruin the effect. Then hold a pitcher of ice-cold water high and let it drip down ever so slowly onto the melting sugar cube. The correct thing is to place two sugar cubes on a specially made slotted spoon. The beauty is in how the oils precipitate, one at a time, releasing layer after layer of herbal aroma, “louche.” Being a somewhat bitter concentrate, absinthe requires the addition of water and sugar. Today, the allure that keeps absinthe in the drug-myth hall of fame is one shared by all self-respecting psychoactives: the ritual. It was enough to push the absinthe fear-mongering over the edge. In 1905, Swiss farmer Jean Lanfray brutally murdered his pregnant wife and two children, after having consumed one coffee laced with brandy, two crème de menthes, six glasses of Cognac, five liters of wine and two glasses of absinthe. But something else happened that made the scourge all too obvious. Or that other effects like vomiting and vertigo came from illegal adulterants in cheaper bottlings. Or that the hereditary, decaying condition looked an awful lot like fetal alcohol syndrome and plain old drunkenness. Someone might have pointed out that his studies were all on guinea pigs dosed with enormous amounts of pure wormwood. He also noted a general decay in habitual users, a condition passed on to their offspring. Valentin Magnan, whose clinical studies indicated that absinthe caused hysteria, epilepsy and projectile excretion. So the idea was hatched by an unlikely coalition of wineries and temperance crusaders: instead of banning alcohol, let’s just ban absinthe.ĭriving the movement was Dr. Compounding matters, absinthe was the choice of bohemians, a suspicious crowd if ever there was one. The resulting wave of drunkenness mirrored the gin-soaked ghettos of England’s industrial towns. Except it’s five times stronger than wine. Wine producers were smarting from a root louse invasion that all but destroyed their industry and the ensuing shortage caused workers to substitute wine for absinthe. Big problem for France, where wine is considered both food and medicine for grown-ups and children alike. Meanwhile, a worldwide temperance movement was brewing.
Once the province of the wealthy, by the late 1800s absinthe became cheap and plentiful.
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