Young Australian Skeptics

Of all the alcoholic spirits, there is probably none more unfairly abused and maligned than absinthe. Waking up in the drunk-​​tank, for example, is not big news if you were drinking bourbon or vodka…but absinthe? Well, then it’s a different story.

For those of you unfamiliar with the spirit, it is a clear to green coloured high proof spirit, distilled in a similar way to gin with three primary ingredients (green anise, fennel, and wormwood) and a host of other ingredients depending on the particular brand.

A great many myths have sprung up around la fée verte, initially spurred on by those seeking to have it prohibited, and then furthered when the ban was enforced and people were separated from absinthe for a number of years.

It would be impossible to give the entire history of absinthe in a single blog post, however a short explanation of why it was banned in the first place is probably necessary — after all, why was it banned in so many places and for such a length of time if there’s nothing wrong with it?

As with everything else, this is a story best told in many parts, but the skinny of it is that in a number of ways it was the perfect scapegoat for the prohibitionist movement to send over the cliff: It was a high proof alcohol; it had many strange herbal ingredients; it was cheap; and it was the most popular drink in France. That last point was, ironically, a major factor in its eventually prohibition — not only did its popularity give a large population from which to draw bad examples, but it raised the ire of the French wine industry who were struggling financially due to a double blight of mildew and aphids that had required a replanting of most of the French national vineyard. With so much of the French national identity tied up in wine, the prohibitionists would have had an impossible task ahead of them had they tried to ban all alcohol, but by teaming up with the politically well connected vineyard owners and focussing attention onto absinthe they were able to convince much of the public that absinthe was evil.

In the end, absinthe’s fate was sealed by the Jean Lanfray murders of 1905. Lanfray was a known alcoholic, said to have been perfectly capable of drinking five litres of wine in one day. On the day he murdered his pregnant wife and daughter, it was reported that he had drunk…

“…a creme de menthe, a cognac and soda, seven glasses of wine, brandy-​​laced coffee, another litre of wine, and another slug of brandy…”

…in addition to two glasses of absinthe.

Want to take a guess at what the press and police blamed for the murders? By 1910, absinthe was illegal in Switzerland, and most other countries followed suit soon thereafter (for various, but similar, reasons).

Of course, prohibitionists are hardly to blame for the continued misinformation around today — indeed, in a strange ironic twist the radical claims about absinthe are today generally made by people enthusiastic for it who have less than no clue about what it is they are drinking or on the effects it actually has on their body. The most popular claim by far is that absinthe will make you hallucinate, and that claim can be neatly summed up in one word: Bullshit.

Okay, so maybe a little bit more needs to be said. To start with, blame for the popularity of the claim can be partly laid at the feet of the Bohemian artists who waxed lyrical about the effects of the green fairy, enthusiastically embracing the myth in their art and writings. Although some had hypothesised that perhaps the absinthe back then really did have some kind of different effect the research seems to make that claim highly doubtful. Regardless, when discussing absinthe today one can be certain — it is NOT going to make you hallucinate.

The chemical most often said to be responsible for the ‘hallucinations’ is thujone, a ketone (think acetone) that is found in wormwood — already mentioned as one of the primary ingredients in absinthe. This idea comes primarily from two places: A study by Dr Valentin Magnan, chief physician at the asylum of Sainte Anne in Paris, that was viewed askance even in its own time by many scientists; and a study published by Nature in 1975 that hypothesised that due to thujone having a somewhat similar molecular shape to cannabis it may act on the same receptors in the brain. This hypothesis was later shown to be false, yet the myth persists.

Indeed, even if one were worried about the real effects of thujone (as opposed to the make believe ones), absinthe would pose no problem. In order to ingest an amount of thujone equal to 1000 times less than the LD50 rating known for mice (no humans have thus far volunteered to test for a human LD50 rating) a 68kg person would have to ingest 30.6mg of thujone…or 874ml of 35 mg/​l absinthe.

If you drink that much absinthe, you’ve got far bigger ethanol problems to worry about before you even think about the thujone. Not that you’d be doing much thinking by that stage.

So, that’s about it for the moment. If anyone has any questions, put them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer either there or in another article — and don’t forget to send in any other alcohol myth related questions you may have as well.

If anybody is interested in trying some absinthe — properly, that is — the best place I can think of in Melbourne is Polly on Brunswick Street. They have a great range, and Justin who works there has a fantastic knowledge of the history and tradition of the drink. Be prepared to pay over $15 for a drink — remember that it’s not something you quaff in one go — think of it as like a single malt or a cognac, sip it and enjoy the distinctive flavour.

For more information about absinthe, including more of its history and tradition, go to:

The Wormwood Society
The Virtual Absinthe Museum
La Fée Verte

Tags: absinthe, alcohol, myths, prohibition, Richard Hughes, thujone

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 8:54 am and is filed under Richard Hughes, Skeptic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.