10 Controversial Details Surrounding Absinthe, The Green Drink Some Feared Would Destroy Society

6 /10 Counterfeit Absinthe

For a time, absinthe replaced wine as the most popular drink in France. As the demand increased, more people opened their distilleries to maintain a steady supply of absinthe in the market.

A drastic drop inevitably followed the influx of production in price. Unfortunately, some distilleries produced lesser quality absinthe, or even outright counterfeits, to take advantage of the flocking customers.

Fake absinthe was often not distilled; some contained poisons such as copper sulfate to imitate the distinctive green color of the original one.

5 /10 Tainted Reputation

Wine lobbyists then began their campaign to give a bad name to absinthe. Combined with many counterfeit products, the strategy to discredit the green fairy worked well.

The lobbyists managed to convince the government of France that absinthe posed severe health risks to society.

In reality, the real absinthe crafted using the original recipe and ingredients carried no more trouble than any other high-strength alcoholic beverage.

As part of the smear campaign, wine lobbyists came up with the term “abstinthism” to refer to a condition marked by drunkenness, hallucinations, and hyper-excitability.

4 /10 Jean Lanfray

Even doctors gave outrageous claims that absinthism was a hereditary disease, meaning it could be passed down from a father – who drank absinthe – to his children. Slowly but surely, absinthe was disappearing from the streets of France.

Then on August 28, 1905, in Commugny, Switzerland, a tragedy struck; a Switzerland man named Jean Lanfray killed his pregnant wife and two kids in a drunken rage reportedly due to absinthe in his system.

After the incident, the green fairy became even further away out of favor.

3 /10 Widespread Ban

Investigation revealed that Lanfray consumed an excessive amount of hard liquor after lunch that day. He drank seven glasses of wine, six cognac glasses, a cup of brandy-laced coffee, and two ounces of absinthe.

Any hard liquor of that amount would have resulted in the same effect to Lanfray, but the revelation was too late.

The moral panic around absinthe forced the government of Switzerland to ban the drink in 1910.

The United States implemented the same prohibition in 1912 and France three years later. In the U.S., absinthe would not be legal again until 2007.

2 /10 Faded From Sight

In other countries where absinthe was never formally banned, absinthe remains in production, but sales plummeted.

Most big distilleries went bankrupt, and some moved their production to Spain on a small scale, including Pernod. The original recipe changed over time, but production continued nonetheless.

Local distilleries also made their versions of absinthe. A large number of absinthe stocks in France went unsold.

The government ended up buying them in bulk and used the drinks for the manufacturing process of explosives. In Switzerland, illegal production continued, anyway.

1 /10 High Profile Drinkers

There had been massive bootlegging operations until absinthe became legal again nearly a century later in 2005. Absinthe was never really gone, only transformed into obscurity.

After 2005, many bootleggers applied for and acquired a permit to open legal distilleries in Switzerland easily.

Throughout history, absinthe was the drink of choice for many high-profile customers such as Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, Marilyn Manson, Ernest Hemmingway, James Joyce, and more.

Oscar Wilde once said that a glass of absinthe is as poetical as the sunset.