- [Narrator] Absinthe, the green fairy
that supposedly makes you trip balls.
The spirit that was banned for almost 100 years
due to a gruesome murder.
The medication that protected both ancient Egyptians
and French legionnaires from malaria.
Some of these things are true, some of them are not.
This is a brief history of absinthe.
And before we separate truth from bullshit,
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with spirited facts.
La Fee Verte.
First things first, to get absinthe, you need wormwood.
It's an herb that supposedly cures fever, diarrhea,
and malaria.
The French legionnaires even received a daily ration
of absinthe to fight the mosquito disease.
And it's so incredibly bitter, its name comes from
a Greek word that literally means "undrinkable".
Despite the taste, Renaissance Europeans drank everything
from wormwood-infused wine to wormwood-flavored beer.
But it was the 17th century when apothecaries distilled
the herb that actually created the absinthe we know today.
Now, the mother of modern absinthe is considered
to be Henriette Henriod, but she didn't invent it.
What she did was sell the traditional recipe
to a Frenchman called Major Henri Dubied,
who used his mad skills for marketing
and turned the ancient cure into a party drink.
The artist's muse.
By the end of the 19th century,
absinthe was all the rage in Europe, especially in Paris.
Thousands of Parisian bars and cabarets had
a special happy hour at five o'clock
called L'Heure Verte, or "The Green Hour".
In 1880, mass production made absinthe cheaper,
and by 1912, 36 million liters were consumed each year
in France alone.
What made absinthe even more popular is the wine shortage
due to the disease that infected French vineyards
at the time.
Do remember this, it will be very important later.
The artists obviously loved the green fairy too.
Pablo Picasso, James Joyce, Van Gogh, Oscar Wilde,
and Ernest Hemingway, just to name a few.
Papa Ernie even invented his own cocktail
by mixing absinthe with champagne.
He dubbed it, "Death in the Afternoon".
In a letter to his friend he wrote,
"I got drunk on absinthe last night and did knife tricks.
"Great success shooting one into the piano."
Oscar Wilde even compared it to the sunset.
But dark days were a'comin' for the spirit.
The devil's potion.
Remember the angry wine makers?
Well, when an especially notorious murder occurred
in Switzerland in 1905 that involved a drunk husband
who happened to drink absinthe,
among a variety of other liquors,
they started a media frenzy that turned absinthe
into a hallucinogenic murder drink.
With some help from the anti-drinking Temperance Movement,
the green spirit was banned before you can say
"Wait a minute!"
Switzerland abolished it in 1910,
followed by America in 1912 and France in 1915.
And it stayed that way for almost a century.
Funny thing, too, because in reality,
absinthe doesn't make you hallucinate at all.
We know, right?
In any case, we're lucky we're living in a world
where absinthe is legal again.
The resurrection.
The first revival of absinthe came in the 1990s
from the Czech Republic when Hill's Absinth hit the shelves.
Sure, it wasn't the best quality,
and the recipe lacked a few essential herbs,
but absinthe had made a comeback, bohemian style.
Then, in 2000, the first real commercial absinthe
in almost a century came out in France.
It was called La Fee Absinth, and it used nine herbs
in traditional strength, Henriette style.
Switzerland lifted the ban in 2005,
while America did it two years later.
That means absinthe was still illegal in the States
when James Blunt told us we're beautiful.
Considering new types of absinthe are being invented
all the time, there's even a frozen one out there,
we shouldn't worry about the future of the green fairy.
Tell us what's your favorite absinthe in the comments below.
Cheers!
(upbeat music)