The Absinthe Story
1792
A French doctor with a curiously rhyming name - Pierre Ordinaire - decides it's time for a 18th Century wonder drug. He knocks up a cure-all potion named 'absinthe' - and, as its popularity spreads across the Swiss Val de Travers region, copycat distillers join the party. Soon absinthe attracts a reputation for healing everything from epilepsy, gout, kidney stones, colic, headaches and worms - and pleased punters affectionately nickname the tonic 'La Fée Verte' (the green fairy).
1805
An early day Bill Gates called Henri-Louis Pernod decides the drink should be an aperitif not just a tonic and sets up the famous Pernod Fils absinthe company in Pontarlier in France. Rumor has it Monsieur Pernod got his entrepreneurial hands on the original recipe through his father-in-law - a Major Dubied. The Major had paid good money for the formula apparently left to the Henriod sisters by Pierre Ordinaire on his deathbed.
The Pernod Fils stills gear up to produce 16 liters of the liquor per day. This makes for a lot of happy people.
1850
Pernod Fils now had 26 stills producing 20,000 liters of absinthe a day - meaning even more happy people.
1870
A sad time for the French wine industry as a bug known as phylloxera devastated the vineyards there - a problem that lasted an incredible 30 years. As wine became scarce and expensive, lovers of café culture drowned their sorrows in absinthe. Sales of absinthe exploded as the nation fell in love with the green fairy.
1874
The love affair continues apace and France consumes 700,000 liters of absinthe.
1890
France is hit by a wave of infamous hedonism that lasts throughout the final decade of the 19th Century. The movement embraces the bohemian revelers typically found at the Moulin Rouge in the heart of Montmartre, the Parisian red-light district. The patrons were no strangers to absinthe - or its purported aphrodisiac qualities, and the glamour and frivolity of the Moulin Rouge becomes inextricably linked with the aperitif.
1901
A devastating fire destroys much of the Pernod factory causing millions of liters of absinthe to flood into the Doubs river - it promptly turns cloudy (but I bet the fish felt good!).
1905
The temperance movement (boo!) try and use the so-called 'Absinthe Murders' to obtain a ban on absinthe. In fact, while Swiss man Jean Lanfray apparently shot his pregnant wife and two daughters 'after two glasses of absinthe', he was known to be a wine-guzzling alcoholic - and had washed down the aperitif with no less than a crème de menthe, a cognac, six glasses of wine with lunch, a glass of wine before leaving work, a cup of coffee with brandy in it and an entire liter of wine.
1910
While absinthe was successfully banned in Switzerland, France carried on regardless and consumed 36,000,000 liters of absinthe.
1912
The USA bans absinthe too. Is there no justice?
1914
War breaks out and the French Government circumvents the democratic process and orders the police to forbid all establishments from selling absinthe.
1915
At the height of its popularity, absinthe is banned in France. Despite having issued it to its troops as a preventative against malaria for years, the French Government outlaws the drink, blaming it for widespread desertion in the trenches during World War I. It was also blamed for a syndrome called 'absinthism' (now known not to exist), allegedly characterized by addiction, hyper excitability, epileptic fits and hallucinations.
1918
Absinthe cleverly production moves to Spain, with the Spanish offshoot of Pernod Fils - Pernod S.A. - setting up in Tarragona. While Pernod S.A. eventually shuts down in 1965, other absinthe producers continue the tradition (phew!).
1920s
Absinth begins to be produced in the Bohemian region of Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) and remains popular in venues such as the Savoy Hotel, London.
In 1922, the French government passes a bill allowing imitation (wormwood free) absinthe.
1930s
Cheeky Ernest Hemingway (by now living in Key West, Florida) continues to enjoy absinthe (having gained a taste for it as a young journalist in Spain), with his supplies probably smuggled in from Cuba.
1998
Absinth is revived in the UK by George Rowley where an innovative publicity campaign soon makes it a must-have drink in trendy nightclubs and bars. His action became the catalyst allowing the return of Absinthe once again to Europe and the world.
1999
The website eAbsinthe.com is launched, initially shipping only within the UK, but later expanding to worldwide deliveries.
2005
Hurrah! Absinthe is legalized in Switzerland, allowing official production of the green fairy from the very country where it began. While many producers of Swiss 'la bleue' absinthe had operated underground, they can now make the drink legitimately.
To mark the return of the good times, eAbsinthe.com is re-launched.
