green fairy, "the green goddess," is an alias of absinthe (pronounced ab-synth),
the ultra-potent spirit that
once was the toast of hip tipplers in turn-of-the-century paris.
bohemians drank it. so did oscar wilde. van gogh cut off his ear under
the influence of it, or so the story goes. and now it's staging a
comeback.
absinthe is a strong alcoholic liqueur, about 140 proof. it has the
licoricelike flavor of anise and is made with an herbal extract that
contains wormwood, getting its vivid emerald glow from the herb's
chlorophyll. parisian painters and poets took to absinthe like ducks to water in the
late 1800s, putting themselves under its mysterious green spell so
enthusiastically that happy hour was re-dubbed l'heure verte, or the
green hour. degas and picasso brushed the image of absinthe into
paintings, lautrec and hemingway wrote about it.
hailed as "the green muse," its notoriety was as powerful as its
supposed mind-altering effects. more sober french society saw it as a
corrupting green demon. in 1915, opposed by temperance workers as well
as the wine industry, absinthe was banned in france, in much of the rest
of europe and in the united states. as a drink it all but dried up.
that is, until its recent reintroduction into the hip scene, this time
in london.
early 1900s great britain never got around to outlawing absinthe, it
seems, leaving a legal loophole for modern-day importing company green
bohemia to exploit. this clever marketer began importing it from the
czech republic in 1998, introducing it at a few select uk nightclubs,
cashing in on its mysterious cache and even going so far as to forbid
bartenders from serving it before 9 p.m. once again, absinthe is on our lips.
so what's the secret behind the green magic? what is it about absinthe
that makes bohemians wax poetic and disturbed painters and customs
officials so moody? it's psychoactive effects. traces of wormwood, itself toxic, has an
active ingredient, thujone, that is said to turn absinthe into a
mind-scramble in a glass.
the sensation of imbibing absinthe has been likened by the british
tabloids to the hallucinogenic experience of taking lsd. playboy
magazine more soberly calls it just a strong drink, pointing out in an
august 1999 article that absinthe's notorious narcotic content is
outweighed by its stupefying percentage of alcohol. absinthe may be more
myth than magic after all. (back...)
