#41 - The fascinating history of absinthe

The history of absinthe is a tale of madness, creative genius, smuggling, fairies and bad behaviour in the Belle-Époque, a time of peace and economic prosperity in France when the arts flourished from early 1870 until 1914 and the start of the first world war.

Created as a medicine from wormwood plants by a doctor fleeing the French Revolution, it is a very French drink! 

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• 0:00 Intro
• 0:47 The fascinating history of absinthe
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Transcript

Episode 41 Petite Podcast – The fascinating history of absinthe

Janine: Bonjour and welcome to today’s episode of The Good Life France – the petite podcast – a bite-sized episode in which we explore a single topic! I’m your host Janine Marsh, I’m a British writer living in France, and I travel year-round exploring French destinations, history, culture, art and gastronomy and I love to share my discoveries with you alongside my podcast partner Olivier Jauffrit.

Oli: Bonjour tout le monde, yes indeed, welcome to this new petite podcast. Normally our podcasts are a little longer, but we had so many messages asking us to make more podcasts, we decided to create a petite podcast series alongside the usual episodes! So, let’s get going and dive into our first petite podcast topic! Janine tell us about the theme for today’s episode…

Janine: We’re going to chat about something very French today – absinthe, an alcoholic drink with a fascinating history!  

Oli: That sounds like fun. Let’s dive straight in!   

 The history of absinthe is a tale of madness, creative genius, smuggling, fairies, and bad behaviour in la Belle-Époque, a time of peace and economic prosperity in France when the arts flourished from early 1870 until 1914 and the start of the first world war.

Janine: Have you ever tried absinthe?

Oli: Yes, I quite like it, it’s not my favourite drink but it’s ok. How about you?

Janine: Same. I prefer a nice glass of wine but it’s an interesting drink. I tried it first in Antibes in the south of France in a Roman cellar by the marketplace. And more recently I had a glass in Auvers-sur-Oise, the town where Vincent Van Gogh ended his days in Picardy, northern France. He was a huge fan of absinthe so it seemed only right to visit the little local absinthe museum and raise a glass to him. 

Oli: Well he liked it a lot – it’s said his insanity was a result of drinking too much absinthe and that he cut of his own ear when he had too much of it. So, let’s have a little history lesson of absinthe. 

Janine: It was invented by a French doctor in the late 1700s, but it was really propelled to fame by Henri-Louis Pernod (yes, that Pernod). The inventor was called Dr. Ordinaire (you couldn’t make that up could you?) and he’d fled France during the French Revolution, and settled across the border in a place called Couvet in Switzerland. Here he carried on working and adapted a local herbal folk remedy which used a plant called wormwood – no worms involved - to cure patients. I reckon it’s more likely it knocked them out and they forgot they were ill – the alcohol content was a whopping 73 degrees. When he died, he passed on the secret recipe. 

Oli: Five years later, Henri-Louis Pernod, opened a distillery in Couvet, then, in 1805, to dodge taxes he opened a bigger factory back in France, in Pontarlier at the foot of the Jura Mountains. The wormwood potion, now called Absinthe, was huge successful. Before long there were 22 distilleries producing Artemisia absinthium to which was added Spanish aniseed, which made it turn emerald green. 

Janine: People got a taste for absinthe, mass production made It cheap and wine was getting more and more expensive because of disastrous growing conditions and bad harvests. 

Oli: If you was to take a stroll through Montmartre at 5.00pm in the 1860s you would have seen cafés with men and women, often alone, contemplating their glasses of the spirit. This was the l’Heure Verte – the Green Hour, which was the origin of our ‘Happy Hour’. Waiters tried to serve just one glass, but people just moved to another café to get more. And it became a problem.

Janine: And it wasn’t just the poor who got hooked on absinthe. Artists loved it too. Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec, Oscar Wilde, Hemingway, Degas, Gauguin, the poet Rimbaud - they were all fans

Oli: Serving absinthe has its own special traditions. It’s a ritual which cannot be hurried, and uses special equipment which builds anticipation. The emerald liquid is poured into a glass. A special absinthe spoon which is flat with holes in it, is placed across the top of the glass. A sugar cube is placed on the spoon. 

Janine: An absinthe fountain is filled with ice cold water in the middle of the table, and there are little taps all the way round, you open the tap and the water drips out slowly onto the sugar cube and into the glass.  

Oli: This creates la louche, the water turns cloudy and when the sugar has dissolved the absinthe is ready to drink. 

Janine: The Green Fairy, as it was nicknamed for its colour but also because of the effects it had, caused problems in society. Because it was so cheap people drank a lot of it, which gave it a reputation for causing hallucinations. It was blamed for all sorts of bad things from epilepsy to tuberculosis, crime and madness. 

Oli: It couldn’t be allowed to go on like this. Absinthe was banned in several countries including Belgium, Brazil, the Netherlands, and Switzerland in the early 1900s, the U.S. in 1912, and France, the centre of absinthe culture, in 1915. Two World Wars followed, the Green Fairy was dead and forgotten. Or was she?

Janine: Please welcome a Brit. Yes you heard that right! A British entrepreneur by the name of George Rowley who, from his base in Prague, became interested in the legal validity of the ban. He teamed up with French cellular biologist Marie-Claude Delahaye, who was fascinated by the legend after buying an absinthe spoon in a flea-market in 1981. In 1995, they challenged the 80-year-old ban through the European court, and they won. In 2000, the first traditionally distilled absinthe commercially produced in France since 1915 was launched. And Marie Claude – she now runs the Musee de l’absinthe in Auvers-sur-Oise that I mentioned before! It’s packed with rooms full of fascinating memorabilia. She has spent years going to flea markets and antiques fairs to build up her collection and she grows wormwood plants in her sunny walled garden.

Oli: Janine in an earlier episode you claimed Champagne is British, now absinthe! 

Janine: Might be wine next – watch out! 

Oli: Absinthe is quite popular in France now, but more for interest than as a regular drink. And whatever you do, exercise caution if you try it! 

Janine: We hope you enjoyed this petite podcast! Tune in next week for a longer podcast as we discover more about the culture, history, gastronomy, cheese and cakes art, famous people, plus destinations, museums, monuments and much, much more. 

Oli – Everything you want to know about France and more!

And a big thank you to all for sharing us, we’re very grateful.  You’ve been listening to me Olivier Jauffrit and Janine Marsh. You can find me at parischanson.fr where I play classic French sounds.

Janine: And you can find me at www.thegoodlifefrance.com where you can sign up for the podcast to magically hear from us each week, and you can sign up for The Good Life France Magazine which is totally free, find loads of information about France on the website, sign up for the weekly newsletter and find The Good Life France on social media. As Oli said, it really is everything you want to know about France and more! 

Meanwhile it’s au revoir from me.

Oli: And goodbye from me. 

Janine: Speak to you soon!