Absinthe

The high-proof, anise-and-wormwood spirit banned in the United States from 1912 to 2007 on the basis of a thujone-causes-madness story that the chemistry never supported. The Sazerac uses an absinthe rinse. The Corpse Reviver No. 2 is structurally absinthe. Pre-Prohibition cocktail recipes call for it constantly.

What it is

Absinthe is a high-proof, anise-flavored spirit traditionally made by macerating and distilling grand wormwood (Artemisia absinthium), green anise, fennel, and a supporting cast of herbs in a neutral grape or grain spirit. ABV runs from 45 to 74 percent. The classic French and Swiss style is colored a light yellow-green with chlorophyll from a second herbal maceration after distillation, which is what gives genuine absinthe its name la fée verte, the green fairy.

Add cold water and absinthe louches, turning a milky pale green-white as the herbal essential oils precipitate out of solution and form a colloidal suspension. The traditional preparation is one part absinthe to four or five parts cold water, dripped slowly through a sugar cube on a slotted spoon. The cube dissolves into the water, the water drips into the absinthe, and the louche develops over thirty seconds.

Where it shows up

Pre-Prohibition American cocktail manuscripts use absinthe more than any other modern bartender would expect. Jerry Thomas's Improved Whiskey Cocktail calls for an absinthe rinse. The Sazerac is built on an absinthe rinse over Peychaud's bitters. The Corpse Reviver No. 2 uses gin, Cointreau, Lillet Blanc, lemon, and absinthe in roughly equal parts. The Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway's contribution from 1935, is absinthe and Champagne. The Sazerac, Improved Whiskey Cocktail, and Corpse Reviver are not optional absinthe drinks. They are absinthe drinks.

Beyond the named cocktails, an absinthe rinse is one of the most useful seasoning techniques in classical bartending. A few drops in a chilled glass, swirled and discarded, leaves an aromatic ghost that doesn't dominate the drink but lifts everything in it. The technique appears throughout the pre-Prohibition canon.

The historical arc

Absinthe in roughly its modern form emerged in the late 1700s in the Val-de-Travers region of Switzerland, where Henriette Henriod and later the Pernod Fils company commercialized a wormwood-based herbal medicine. By the 1840s absinthe had become the favored aperitif of the French middle class, and by the 1860s it was the favored aperitif of everyone. The five o'clock l'heure verte was a recognized social institution. By 1910, France was consuming 36 million liters of absinthe per year.

The backlash came from two directions. The French wine industry, recovering from phylloxera, lobbied hard against absinthe as a cheap competitor. And a moral panic developed around absinthism, a supposed syndrome of madness, hallucinations, and antisocial behavior attributed to absinthe consumption. The most famous case was Jean Lanfray, a Swiss laborer who in 1905 murdered his pregnant wife and two daughters after drinking, among many other things, two glasses of absinthe. He had also drunk seven glasses of wine, six glasses of cognac, two coffees with brandy, and a crème de menthe before the murders, but the absinthe got the blame.

The Lanfray case triggered referendums, then bans. Switzerland banned absinthe in 1908. France in 1915. The United States banned absinthe in 1912 by FDA action, on the grounds that the thujone in wormwood was a dangerous narcotic-like substance.

The thujone myth sits underneath the entire ninety-five-year US ban. Thujone is a real compound found in wormwood essential oil. At very high doses it is convulsant, similar in mechanism to picrotoxin. The story that absinthe contained enough thujone to cause hallucinations and the syndrome of absinthism was a nineteenth-century scientific assumption that was never properly tested at the time. Modern chemical analysis of pre-ban absinthe bottles, including work published by Swiss chemist Dirk Lachenmeier and his colleagues in the early 2000s, found that pre-ban absinthe contained roughly the same low concentration of thujone as post-revival absinthe. The thujone story was wrong.

The US ban ended in 2007 when the Food and Drug Administration accepted that absinthe meeting the EU thujone limit (under 35 mg/kg) was not appreciably different from other anise spirits like Pernod Pastis or Ouzo, both of which had been legal in the US the whole time. Lucid Absinthe Supérieure, made in France with US-distilled neutral spirit, was the first absinthe legally sold in the US since 1912. St. George Absinthe Verte from Alameda, California, followed weeks later as the first US-distilled absinthe of the modern era. Lucid was approved by the TTB on March 5, 2007. St. George got its approval in December.

Within a year there were a dozen absinthes on the US market. Today there are more than fifty.

Modern brands

• Pernod Absinthe (France, 68%). The reformulated modern Pernod, launched in 2013, replacing the older yellow Pernod Pastis the Pernod brand had retreated to during the ban era. A traditional French Verte style.
• St. George Absinthe Verte (California, 60%). The first post-ban US absinthe. Star anise forward, slightly fruity, balanced wormwood. Bartender favorite.
• Lucid Absinthe Supérieure (France, 62%). The first legal post-ban absinthe in the US, March 2007. Authentic French Verte, traditional preparation.
• Vieux Pontarlier (France, 65%). Traditional Pontarlier-style, herbal, drier.
• Kübler Absinthe Superieure (Switzerland, 53%). Swiss Blanche-style, clear (uncolored), slightly lighter on the wormwood.
• Pacifique Absinthe Verte (Washington, 62%). Pacific Distillery's version, well-regarded for the Sazerac rinse.

Modern substitutions

For an absinthe rinse, the traditional substitution is Pernod or Ricard pastis, which were the legal stand-ins through the ban years. They are anise-based and work mechanically, but they lack the wormwood note and the herbal complexity. Herbsaint, the New Orleans pastis-style spirit, is the traditional substitution in the Sazerac and is genuinely good in that drink, despite not being absinthe.

For a Corpse Reviver No. 2 or any drink that uses absinthe in real volume, the substitution is harder. Pastis works but produces a different drink. Ouzo is too sweet. There is no perfect sub, and absinthe is widely available enough now that the question rarely comes up.

Where to buy

Most US liquor stores carry at least one absinthe. St. George Absinthe Verte is widely distributed in California and the Pacific Northwest. Pernod Absinthe and Lucid are the most widely available nationally. Specialty cocktail retailers like Astor Wines and K&L stock half a dozen brands. A bottle runs sixty to ninety dollars, and a single bottle goes a long way because the dose is small.

At a glance

Category	High-proof anise-and-wormwood spirit
Origin	Switzerland, late 1700s
ABV	45 to 74 percent
US ban	1912 to 2007
First post-ban US release	Lucid Absinthe Supérieure, March 5, 2007
Signature drinks	Sazerac, Corpse Reviver No. 2, Death in the Afternoon

Cocktails to try

• Sazerac · rye, sugar, Peychaud's bitters, absinthe rinse, lemon peel.
• Corpse Reviver No. 2 · equal parts gin, Cointreau, Lillet Blanc, lemon, plus an absinthe rinse. Savoy, 1930.
• Death in the Afternoon · 1.5 oz absinthe in a Champagne flute, topped with cold Champagne. Hemingway, 1935.

The thujone story was a nineteenth-century scientific assumption that survived as fact for ninety-five years, and put the Sazerac in the wilderness for most of it.