Ultimately, despite its vogue status, the reputation of absinthe and its drinkers changed from reverence to disgust. France, the epicenter of absinthe culture, formally banned the sale and production of absinthe in The distillery, opened in in Pontarlier, France by Henri-Louis Pernod, caught fire after a lightning strike. The absinthe shortage was compounded by the supposed role absinthe played in certain human tragedies.
Where only little more than a century earlier, absinthe was said to have cured countless ailments, the drink was now considered the cause for countless more. Epilepsy, tuberculosis, and madness were the rumored effects of the drink at the turn of the 20th century. The ensuing moral panic led to absinthe drinkers being seen as dangerous addicts as opposed to fashionable intellectuals, and the near worldwide ban on the emerald substance was enough to keep absinthe out of the public consciousness for decades to come.
Absinthe was once again on the cultural map, and opportunistic distillers looked for loopholes in order to produce and distribute the drink once again. The largest loophole existed in the law of the United Kingdom, where absinthe was never all that popular, and as such, never banned. The substance was essentially the same as absinthe, it just could not be labeled as such. Another interesting point about French law: though consumption and purchase of absinthe was outlawed in the ban, production was never outlawed and, according to some sources, never truly ceased.
Because it makes you mad-such was the view one eminent French Doctor who carried about several studies on behalf of the Government. By the turn of the century, the French Wine industry was beginning to recover from the Great French Wine Blight, which struck in the s. The culprit? Step forward phylloxera, a parasitic aphid, which devastated Continental vineyards for more than a decade. When the vines began to recover, French winemakers were quick to join the crusade against Absinthe.
Matters came to a head in when Jean Lanfray, a Swiss farmer, murdered his family allegedly under the influence of absinthe. Bowing to increasing public pressure, the Swiss banned it in The ban remained for seventy-four years.
The French government claimed that absinthe was contributing to an epidemic of alcoholism. Wine, by contrast, was thought patriotic, French, morally upright even. Contrary to popular belief, there is not enough Thujone a byproduct of Wormwood in it to give hallucinations.
However, it is pretty strong. Although there is also evidence to show that the doctor not only existed but actually sold absinthe. Some reports say this was only after his stealing the recipe from the Henriod sisters. Whoever its true originator, the village of Couvet in Switzerland's Val-de-Travers region is indisputably absinthe's spiritual home. And it appears that commercial absinthe distillation for use as a beverage rather than an elixir was started there sometime around by one Abram-Louis Perrenoud.
Thankfully it is undisputed that it was Major Dubied who commercialised absinthe. That same year Dubied acquired the formula from Abram-Louis or possibly the Henriod sisters and employed his son-in-law, Henri-Louis, as he had learnt the art of distillation from his father. In Henri-Louis changed his name from Perrenoud to Pernod and established his own absinthe manufacturing company called Pernod Fils, just across the border in the French town of Pontarlier.
This was chiefly to avoid paying taxes at the French border. The popularity of absinthe was helped by French army doctors prescribing it to soldiers in the s Algerian Campaign to prevent fevers, malaria, and dysentery, caused by the extreme North African environment.
Later in the 19th century, the phylloxera plagues beginning in and lasting through the s decimated European vineyards leaving the wine and brandy industries on their knees. Cheap and easily obtainable absinthe was an obvious alternative. Its sales boomed in the Parisian cafes frequented by Bohemian luminaries such as Van Gogh, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Picasso who were inspired by its 'mind-altering' effects - alcohol can do that to a man.
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