ABSINTHE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER: PART II, A VERY BRIEF HISTORY OF THE "GREEN MUSE"

ABSINTHE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER

PART II: A Very Brief History of "The Green Muse"

The Absinthe Drinker, by Viktor Oliva (1901).

The origins of “La Muse Virte” (“The Green Muse”) is somewhat unclear but it is known that she has been around for a very long time, and that wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) was used medicinally in ancient Egypt and was mentioned in the Ebers Papyrus dated c. 1550 BC. We also know that various wormwood extracts and leaves soaked in wine were also used as medicine by the ancient Greeks; however, the Greeks, ever the innovators, took things a step further and concocted a wormwood-flavored wine, absinthites oinos, perhaps a precursor of the Greek aperitif ouzo.

Dr. Ordinaire, c. 1792.

That having been said, the first evidence that we have of a “modern” absinthe, that is a distilled spirit containing green anise and fennel, only dates back to the 18^th century where according to legend, “La Muse” made her debut as an “all purpose” patent medicine created by one Dr. Pierre Ordinaire[1], residing in Couvet, Switzerland somewhere around 1792. Ordinaire’s formula was passed on to the Henriod sisters,[2] also of Couvet, who then sold absinthe as a “medicinal elixir” (there are some however, who say that the Henriods were actually purveying their “elixir” long before Ordinaire ever arrived from France. Be that as it may, the next significant producer of absinthe was a Major Dubied who acquired the formula from the Sisters Henriod (we don’t know if he bought it or stole it), and who along with his son Marcellin and son-in-law Henry-Louis Pernod,[3] opened the first absinthe distillery, Dubied Pére et Fils, in 1797, again in Couvet, thus making the town the absinthe capital of the world at the time. In 1805, they built a second distillery in Pontarlier, France under the company name Maison Pernod Fils, which remained the most popular brand of “La Muse” until 1914.

Henry-Louis Pernod

Absinthe rose in popularity, particularly in France, during the 1840s, when it was given to (happy) French troops as a preventative medicine for malaria. Needless to say, when the troops returned home, they brought with them their fondness for the drink, which was spread to bars, bistros, cafés, and cabarets, so that by the 1860s, 5 p.m. was known as “l’heure verte” (“the green hour”), and the concoction became a cross-class favorite, pleasing the wealthy bourgeoisie, poor artists and writers, and the working-class. It has been said that absinthe was so popular that for many, their day started with a glass of absinthe and ended or perhaps restarted with the “l’heure verte” It may well have been that a blight on French vineyards in the 1870s was at least partly responsible for the spread of absinthe. At that time, wine was often drunk with water, because water in many places, such as Paris, had a high bacterial content and wine was believed to help alleviate the danger. When the phylloxera blight caused a spike in the prices of wine, the working classes (especially) turned to the cheaper absinthe to “purify” their water. Be that as it may, popularity by the 1880s resulted in mass production which in turn caused a dramatic price drop. Reports are that by 1910, the French alone were drinking 36 million liters of absinthe per year, as opposed to only 5 billion liters of wine per year!

Absinthe was widely exported and was somewhat popular in Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, the United States, and the Czech Republic. Sales of absinthe hit a spike in popularity during the early 20^th century at a time when Art Nouveau and modernism were popular movements. In America, New Orleans had its own association with absinthe, noted as the birthplace of the “Sazerac” – perhaps the earliest absinthe cocktail. The Old Absinthe House bar, located on Bourbon Street, is a prominent historical landmark within the city. Originally named The Absinthe Room, it opened in 1874 and was frequented by such people as Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Franklin Roosevelt and even Frank Sinatra.

But alas, the temperance movement would eventually take hold in the U.S. and elsewhere, assisted by various winemakers’ associations, and “The Green Muse” found herself accused of all sorts of violent crimes and social disorder.

As one critic of absinthe complained, “Absinthe makes you crazy and criminal, provokes epilepsy and tuberculosis, and has killed thousands of French people. It makes a ferocious beast of a man, a martyr of women, and a degenerate of the infant. It disorganizes and ruins the family and menaces the future of the country.

Manet’s Le Buveur d’absinthe (1859) and Degas’ 1876 painting, L’Absinthe were at the time held up as the epitomic image of absinthe drinkers as addicted or doped. Émile Zola mentioned absinthe once but extensively described its effects in his novel L’Assommoir.

Le Buveur d’absinthe by Manet (1859). 

In 1905, it was widely reported that Jean Lanfray, a Swiss farmer, murdered his family and attempted suicide after drinking absinthe. The fact of the matter was that Lanfray was an acute alcoholic who had consumed copious amounts of wine and brandy before drinking two glasses of absinthe (a small fact conveniently overlooked in the press). The homicides were used as a rallying point for the hot topic of absinthe and resulted in a petition to ban absinthe in its own homeland of Switzerland. On July 5, 1908 the ban was approved and subsequently written into the Swiss constitution. Two years prior to that, Belgium and Brazil had banned absinthe, the Netherlands banned it in 1909, and the United States in 1912. Interestingly it was never banned in the United Kingdom

The ban in France led to the popularity of pastis, an anise-flavored aperitif and to a lesser degree, Greek ouzo. Following World War I, production of the Pernod Fils brand of absinthe was renewed in Catalonia, Spain where it had never been banned; however, sales were slight and production ceased in the 1960s, while in Switzerland, absinthe went “underground,” produced in secret home distilleries in a colorless form, la Bleue, which was easier to conceal from the law.

Next time: The manufacture and "mixology" of "The Green Muse."

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[1] Dr. Pierre Ordinaire, a French doctor living in Switzerland had no sinister intent; rather, his intention was to deliver to people the extract wormwood, which had long been known to have powerful healing effects -- in a handy form.

[2] The Sisters Henriod had for a very long while been creating medicinal tinctures and tisanes to help the residents of Couvet, Switzerland. Many of their recipes had been passed down to them from their mother and her mother before.  Although the Sisters were well respected and their shop well patronized, they still needed to be cautious of the ever possible accusation of witchcraft even then; for even though the final Witchcraft Act of 1735 written into law led to prosecution for fraud rather than pacts with the Devil, both could result in in a death sentence. (This same act was still used in Switzerland during the 1940s to prosecute spiritualists and Gypsies and it wasn’t repealed until 1951.)

Now, according to the sisters' descendants, the two ladies were very clever but also knew their limitations by virtue of simply being women in the 1790s; therefore, they secured the help of their friend, DR. Pierre Ordinaire, who they claim had quite a fancy for their mother, to promote their wormwood product - Absinthe -and he was quite successful at it. One might say he was a natural salesman, who attracted the attention of French businessman, Major Dubied, who ultimately purchased the recipe from the sisters at a very tidy sum.

[3] The story of Pernod began in 1805. Born in Switzerland in 1776, Henri-Louis Pernod founded his distillery in the town of Pontarlier, located in the region of Doubs in eastern France, “La Maison Pernod Fils”. The company produced and marketed Absinthe Pernod Fils, a drink inspired by an elixir whose recipe Henri-Louis Pernod had acquired from its creator, Dr. Ordinaire (or possibly the Sisters Henriod).In 1926, “La Maison Pernod Fils” merged with “Distillerie Hémard”, founded in Montreuil in 1871 by Ariste Hémard, and “Pernod Père et Fils”, founded in Avignon in 1872 by Jules-François Pernod. These three companies came together to create “Établissements Pernod”. This organization was directed by Jean Hémard, the grandson of Ariste Hémard.

In 1959, “Établissements Pernod” became “Pernod SA”.