Absynth???? Is it real and why do people have so much to say 'bout it?!
Absynth???? Is it real and why do people have so much to say 'bout it?
Answers:
Yes it's real (traditionally spelled "absinthe") and most people who have a lot to say about it have never had it...for example, long answers pasted from somebody else's website. It's real in that it exists...it's not in the context of the hype. It's not a hallucinogen or psychotropic drug.
It was banned in the early 1900's due to misinformation, politics, and money...the ban originated with the French wine industry when a blight nearly wiped out all the vineyards in Europe in the late 1800's. People switched to absinthe, and its popularity threatened the big wine chateaux...they reacted by heavy lobbying and got it banned along with a lot of negative propaganda. Ironically, that propaganda helped romanticize it and it went underground.
In recent years, a number of European countries realized that there's nothing to the allegations that led to its ban, so absinthe has been regaining legal status little by little.
All in all, it's a nifty, really green, anise flavored spirit that one really loves or hates...not much in between. No hype, no hallucinations...just booze.
It is Real -The precise origin of absinthe is unclear. The medical use of wormwood dates back to ancient Egypt and is mentioned in the Ebers Papyrus, circa 1550 BCE. Wormwood extracts and wine-soaked wormwood leaves were used as remedies by the ancient Greeks.[11] The first clear evidence of absinthe in the modern sense of a distilled spirit containing green anise and fennel, however, dates to the 18th century but may be older. According to popular legend, however, absinthe began as an all-purpose patent remedy created by Dr. Pierre Ordinaire, a French doctor living in Couvet, Switzerland, around 1792 (the exact date varies by account). Ordinaire's recipe was passed on to the Henriod sisters of Couvet, who sold absinthe as a medicinal elixir. In fact, by other accounts, the Henriod sisters may have already been making the elixir before Ordinaire's arrival. In either case, one Major Dubied in turn acquired the formula from the sisters and, in 1797, with his son Marcellin and son-in-law Henry-Louis Pernod, opened the first absinthe distillery, Dubied Père et Fils, in Couvet. In 1805 they built a second distillery in Pontarlier, France, under the new company name Maison Pernod Fils.[12]
Absinthe's popularity grew steadily until the 1840s, when absinthe was given to French troops as a fever preventative. When the troops returned home, they brought their taste for absinthe with them, and it became popular at bars and bistros.
By the 1860s, absinthe had become so popular that in most cafés and cabarets 5 p.m. signalled l’heure verte ('the green hour'). Still, it remained expensive and was favoured mainly by the bourgeoisie and eccentric Bohemian artists. By the 1880s, however, the price had dropped significantly, the market expanded, and absinthe soon became the drink of France; by 1910 the French were consuming 36 million litres of absinthe per year.
Absinthe (with anise) has been consumed in Czech lands (then part of Austria-Hungary) since at least 1888, notably by Czech artists, some of whom had an affinity for France, frequenting Prague's Cafe Slavia.[13] Its wider appeal is uncertain, though it was sold in many shops in and around Prague. There is evidence that at least one local liquor distillery, in Bohemia, was purporting to make absinthe at the turn of the 20th century.[14]
Effects
Absinthe has long been believed to be hallucinogenic but evidence supporting this is questionable. Ten years after Dr. Magnan's wormwood oil experiments he studied 250 cases of alcoholism claiming those who drank absinthe were worse off than those who just drank alcohol and they experienced, among other things, rapidly brought on hallucinations.[30] Few descriptions of these hallucinations exist from actual absinthe drinkers beyond a few quotes from poets after a long night of drinking. In one of the most famous, Oscar Wilde describes the feeling of tulips on his legs after leaving a bar at closing.[31] These beliefs got a boost in the 1970s when a scientific paper mistakenly reported thujone was related to THC and most likely had similar hallucinogenic properties based on its shape.[32] With the advent of usenet and web recipes 'trip reports' have been circulating for many years. These home recipes sometimes call for known hallucinogenic herbs in a mistaken attempt to recreate Absinthe's supposed hallucinogenity.
Today it is known that absinthe does not cause hallucinations, especially those described in the old studies. Thujone, the supposed active chemical in absinthe, is a GABA antagonist and while it can produce muscle spasms in large doses it does not cause hallucinations.
The effects of absinthe have been described by artists as mind opening and even hallucinogenic and by prohibitionists as turning "good people" "mad and desolate". Sometimes called 'secondary effects', the most commonly reported experience is a 'clear-headed' feeling of inebriation - a 'lucid drunkenness', said to be caused by the thujone and other compounds. Some, such as chemist/absinthe historian Ted Breaux, say that these effects may be caused by the fact that some of the compounds act as stimulants, others as sedatives, overall creating a neutral effect.[33] Most others feel that the placebo effect and individual reaction to the herbs make these secondary effects subjective and minor compared to the psychoactive effects of alcohol.
A study in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol[34] concluded that a high concentration of thujone in alcohol has negative effects on attention performance. It slowed down reaction time, and subjects concentrated their attention in the central field of vision. Medium doses did not produce an effect noticeably different from plain alcohol. The high dose of thujone in this study was larger than what one can get from current beyond-EU-regulation 'high thujone' absinthe before becoming too drunk to notice, and while the effects of even this high dose were statistically significant in a double blind test, the test subjects themselves could still not reliably identify which samples were the ones containing thujone. As most people describe the effects of absinthe as a more lucid and aware drunk, this suggests that thujone alone is not the cause of these effects.
Absinthe (also absinth) is a distilled, highly alcoholic, anise-flavoured spirit derived from herbs including the flowers and leaves of the medicinal plant Artemisia absinthium, also called grand wormwood. Although it is sometimes mistakenly called a liqueur, absinthe is not bottled with added sugar and is, therefore, classified as a liquor or spirit.
Because absinthe is typically green (either naturally or with added color), it is often referred to as la Fée Verte ('The Green Fairy'). Because of its high proof and concentration of oils, absintheurs (absinthe drinkers) typically add three to five parts ice-cold water to a dose of absinthe, which causes a cloudiness in the drink, called 'louching'; often the water is used to dissolve added sugar to decrease bitterness. This preparation is considered an important part of the experience of drinking absinthe, so much so that it has become ritualised, complete with special slotted absinthe spoons and other accoutrements. Absinthe's flavour is similar to other anise-flavoured drinks, with a light bitterness and some complexity imparted by multiple herbs.
Absinthe originated in Switzerland as an elixir/tincture, used in a similar capacity as patent medicines would be used later in the United States. However, it is better known for its popularity in late 19th and early 20th century France, particularly among Parisian artists and writers whose romantic associations with the drink still linger in popular culture. In its heyday, the most popular brand of absinthe worldwide was Pernod Fils. At the height of this popularity, absinthe was portrayed as a dangerously addictive, psychoactive drug; the chemical thujone was blamed for most of its deleterious effects. By 1915, it was banned in a number of European countries and the United States. Even though it was vilified, no evidence shows it to be any more dangerous or psychoactive than ordinary alcohol. A modern absinthe revival began in the 1990s, as countries in the European Union began to reauthorise its manufacture and sale.