More on Absinthe's Presence
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 12:06 AM

The loyal Vice Squad reader will recall that an absinthe made from wormwood recently became available for sale on the US market, ending a nearly century-long drought. Forbes.com provides an article that explains the process of getting the absinthe, named lucid (uncapitalized), approved. One of the stumbling blocks concerned labeling; specifically, could lucid call itself “absinthe” on the label? The regulators were wary, because of what they seemed to regard as absinthe’s unsavory past. But they must not have been too wary – the compromise agreed to was to add an adjective, and a French adjective at that. lucid became an "absinthe supérieure" (which also suggests that absinthe is feminine).

Other legal absinthes (or absinthes inférieures?) are likely headed for the US market.

Labels: absinthe, alcohol, Prohibition

 
Legal Absinthe in the US
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 9:19 AM

After nearly a century of prohibition, absinthe has found its way back to the European legal mix. But in the US, absinthe sales have remain proscribed. A close relative trades legally under the brand name Absente, however -- the recipe for Absente does not involve the use of (grande) wormwood, the ingredient that was blamed (probably incorrectly) for absinthe-related harms. (The high alcohol content and the standard failings of humanity were probably the real culprits.)

But now a new version of absinthe has received official imprimatur for sales in the US. The innovative distillation has a strong pedigree, being crafted by the absinthe-obsessed Ted Breaux, whose research suggests that Belle Epoque-era absinthe contained essentially no thujone (the worrisome compound in wormwood), nor did it inherit the bitterness of wormwood. Mr. Breaux could thus fashion a drink, perhaps, that would both be true to the tradition of high-quality absinthes while meeting US legal muster. Now the product of his efforts, distilled in France, is available in the US under the brand name lucid. Here's a review following its recent debut; lucid is 62% alcohol, which is not a particularly strong concoction by absinthe standards.

If you think that Vice Squad spends a bit too much time with absinthe, stay well clear of these blogs.

Labels: absinthe, alcohol, Prohibition

 
Unconventional Bundling
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:15 PM

Many people smoke when they drink, so it isn't surprising to find bars that also sell tobacco products. (Smoking and gambling also seem to go together.) But somehow vice attracts rather odd pairings, too. Recently we mentioned the iPod FM-transmitter/alcohol breathalyzer combination. In a similar vein comes today's bundled good. Do you know those data storage devices for USB ports? Well now, it seems, you finally can acquire such a memory stick that also happens to double as an absinthe spoon. Is this a sign of a progressing or a declining civilization?

Labels: absinthe

 
Present Absinthe
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:44 AM

The March 13, 2006 New Yorker brings a fine article by Jack Turner about non-snus Vice Squad obsession absinthe. (A scanned pdf version apparently is available from halfway down this page.) The article details the efforts of one committed individual -- Ted Breaux -- to reproduce the sorts of absinthes that were available circa-1900, prior to the misguided ban. Breaux has determined that there was essentially no thujone in the pre-ban absinthes. (Thujone is the chemical in wormwood, an input into absinthe production, that presumably was responsible for any toxic properties of the drink -- at least those toxic properties that are not common to all high-alcohol concoctions.) Furthermore, the ur-absinthe is not even bitter: a proper distillation process removes both the thujone and the bitterness.

In the US, you still don't see absinthe on your grocer's shelves, even though it is legal (accidentally?) in Europe. But you can still find some in the good ol' USA, it seems (though as always, do not rely upon this info as legal advice):

The current trade takes place mostly on the Internet, thanks to a curious legal loophole. The Department of Agriculture's 1912 ban affected only sales and distillation of the drink; consumption and possession remain legal. Travellers returning to the U.S. with a bottle or customers buying it from Europe on the Internet are not guilty of any crime, though they could have their bottle confiscated.

As Vice Squad frequently notes, legal consumption, purchase, and (for the most part) possession were features of US national alcohol Prohibition, too; it took the drug war lunacy for purchase and possession to become proscribed.

Labels: absinthe

 
Absinthe Present (and Past)
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 2:15 PM

There's nothing like legalization to spur on absinthe culture to such a pitch that beleaguered mostly-retired vice bloggers have trouble keeping up. First, Wired has a great article that among other things, suggests that the legalization of absinthe in Europe was due to an EU oversight in promulgating food regulations in 1988. (Another example of inefficiency being a virtue in bureaucracy.) But more importantly, it looks as if the combination of modern chemistry and access to intact, century old bottles of absinthe have allowed the absinthe that once captivated the artistic classes of France and Europe to be re-created.

In another piece of historical absinthe preservation (if not re-creation), a 12-minute movie from 1913 depicting absinthe preparation is now available on DVD. In the early days of film, before the spread of the absinthe ban, there were many films depicting (or rather, sensationalizing) absinthe drinking; but apparently, only this 12-minute film has survived.

The removal of the ban is a boon for certain absinthe producers, of course.

Vice Squad's absinthe habit was mostly recently stoked here.

Labels: absinthe, EU

 
Short History of Absinthe
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 5:32 PM

Vice Squad has an infatuation with absinthe. Fortunately it remains illegal to sell absinthe in the good ol' USA, so there is no danger that our infatuation threatens an increase in our insanity. (Note the contrast with typical prohibition supporters, who do not fear that the end of prohibition will result in their own descent into addiction. It's those troublesome others who are the concern.) Last month the Japan Times ran an informative article about absinthe that somehow managed to work a reference to Karl Rove into the mix. (Absinthe is legal in Japan.) Here's a longish extract, including the Rove reference:

Then, on Aug. 28, 1905, a Swiss peasant farmer shot to death his pregnant wife and two small children. Court transcripts indicate that in the 16 hours prior to the shooting, he had drunk two Absinthes, a cre^me de menthe, a cognac and soda, six glasses of local red wine, a coffee and brandy, yet another entire liter of wine, and then topped it off with a final brandy before reaching for his rifle.

In a move that would have made Karl Rove proud, Dr. Magnan and friends were able to label this case as "The Absinthe Murders," and with the temperance movement in full swing, Absinthe was summarily banned in Belgium (1905), Switzerland (1907), the United States (1912), Italy (1913) and finally in France (1915).

Laboratory tests have subsequently found that the "no effect" level for thujone in animals is 12.5 mg per kilogram a day. The FDA and other health regulators generally take the view that setting the human "no effect" level to one one-hundredth of the animal level is sufficiently cautious. Therefore, a very conservative "safe" level for humans is 0.125 mg/kg/day.

Analysis of pre-ban bottles of Absinthe show thujone levels of less the 10 mg per liter, meaning that to reach even this very conservative "no effect" level, a 70 kg person would have had to consumed a bottle and a half a day of 140-proof spirits, a feat which would have resulted in acute alcohol poisoning long before any effect was felt from the thujone. Furthermore, in 1967, Italian researchers found that thujone was the active compound in not only wormwood, but sage as well, an herb not generally considered the scourge of Europe.

Labels: absinthe

 
Swiss Absinthe Ban Ends This Week
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:35 PM

Vice Squad has been talking about the end of the nearly 100-year old ban almost since it first went into effect, it seems. Just last November, we said that absinthe would be legal again in its traditional home in, uh, January. This time we really mean it: come March 1, absinthe will once again be legally available in Switzerland.

Labels: absinthe

 
Lazy Link-Based Post
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:38 AM

(1) Last One Speaks points us to this story about one of our favorite topics, absinthe. The article mentions efforts to recreate the taste of 19th Century absinthe. How could one do that? Some of the original (full) bottles have turned up. Another point mentioned in passing is that the recent liberalization of anti-absinthe laws is largely due to EU pressure on member countries. While I am all in favor of legal absinthe, I am less enamored of liberal vice policies being foisted upon reluctant countries under the precepts of free trade, because I think that such a practice holds the long-term potential to harm both vice and trade policy. (One relatively recent example of this tendency was the trashing of the WTO by some US politicians after the internet gambling case was not going the US's way.)

(2) Mark Kleiman notes the absurdity of the concern that some drug traffickers might take advantage of a semi-amnesty that has been floated for paramilitary fighters in Colombia. The dealers would qualify if they also had engaged in some killing, but some of them who didn't so engage might try to claim that they are cold-blooded killers to be in on the deal. Declare a substance to be evil, and all perspective is lost: there are no obvious standards by which to judge activity related to the evil commodity. So otherwise outrageous policies -- such as arresting people for possessing small quantities of the substance -- are seriously considered and adopted. Speaking of such arrests, Alan Heymann of D'Alliance points to an article out of the University of Maryland about the duty of dorm resident assistants to call the cops when they get a whiff of an unapproved substance. The resident assistants must be very proud of their contribution to law and order as they see their 19-year-old charges led out in handcuffs on a Friday night.

(3) Oral arguments in the medical marijuana case at the Supreme Court took place yesterday, of course; Pete keeps us posted.

Labels: absinthe, Drug WarRant, drugs, EU, marijuana

 
Swiss Prepare for Absinthe Legalization
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:46 PM

In January, after a hiatus of nearly a century, absinthe production will again be legal in absinthe's traditional home, Switzerland. Naturally, the then-legal distillers hope to be able to prevent any producers not from the Swiss absinthe-production region from calling their product "absinthe." My feeling is that if you make it illegal for nearly a century, you lose the right to control its name elsewhere. When Peru legalizes cocaine, they shouldn't be able to force the Colombian producers to call their product something else.

Some people have surprising reasons for not supporting the new law:

Not everyone in the Val-de-Travers is sanguine about legalization in Switzerland. For Pierre Andre Delachaux, a high school teacher and author of several books on absinthe, the move will destroy the mystique that came with the ban.

"I want to preserve the myth that comes with keeping absinthe forbidden and clandestine," said Delachaux, who is also the curator of a small museum in Motiers with a special absinthe section.

"The myth is the thrill of breaking the law and not getting caught," he said. "The myth is offering as much money as you can and maybe still not finding what you're looking for. Next year you'll find absinthe in all the supermarkets. We're going to have the absinthe of the bazaar."

You wouldn't want that, the "absinthe of the bazaar." Vice Squad occasionally turns to absinthe for solace, as in March and again in July.

Brutal Hugs beat me to this story -- and, like Hamlet, was able to work "wormwood" into it.

Update: Maybe absinthe won't actually be legal in Switzerland until March, 2005.

Labels: absinthe

 
Absinthe in the Netherlands
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 4:20 PM

The new bans (one actual, one intended) on the alcohol vaporizer caused Vice Squad to rhapsodize about the frequency with which vice-related bans are adopted. But vice laws swing both ways, and sometimes bans come to an end. In March, we noted that Switzerland was intending to end its 96-year old ban on the opaline alcohol beverage absinthe. Last week, Peaktalk passed along the story of how an Amsterdam Court ruling overturned the Dutch ban on absinthe, which dates "only" to 1909.

The court's rationale is that European Union regulations on absinthe have superseded the Dutch ban. And while I am glad to see the ban end, I do not like the fact that it is intra-EU free trade considerations that are paving the way for this liberalization, as well as making high-alcohol-taxes in Sweden and Finland untenable. Alcohol is not an ordinary commodity, and I am concerned that tying its regulation to standard liberal approaches to free trade (or free speech) threatens both the legality of alcohol and our commitments to free trade or free speech more generally. But that is a discussion for another time.

For now, just want to mention that I recently read The Book of Absinthe: A Cultural History, by Phil Baker. It was a fun read, covering primarily fin de siecle Paris and London, with characters like Ernest Dowson, Oscar Wilde, and Paul Verlaine. The book opens (page 3) by explaining how the Swiss absinthe ban was motivated by the horrific 1905 murders of a pregnant woman and her two young daughters by her husband. The murderer was a "thoroughgoing alcoholic," who had an extraordinary amount to drink both the day before and day of the murders. His two absinthes were literally a drop in the bucket of his imbibing, but a petition to ban absinthe was drawn up in the wake of the murders, and eventually succeeded -- and it lasted for nearly 100 years.

Labels: absinthe, EU, free trade, Netherlands

 
Absinthe Ban in Switzerland
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:52 AM

"Swiss Government Supports End to Absinthe Ban"...

...so reads the headline to the linked Yahoo news story. The ban itself has been around for nearly a century:

"The federal Swiss government said in a report that the 1908 ban no longer was justified, since the quantities of thuyone -- the substance in absinthe considered dangerous -- were now clearly regulated in the drink.

Legalizing it would actually enable authorities to control the production of the alcohol and tax its sales, it said."

Is absinthe, because of thuyone (or thujone), more dangerous than other beverages with similar alcohol content? For modern absinthe (at least not the bootlegged variety), it looks as if the answer is no, but very high levels of thuyone would be a cause for concern. Did pre-ban absinthe contain sufficient thuyone to cause health problems (including mental illness)? Here's the final paragraph of an informative look at thujone by Ian Hutton:

"In conclusion, there is no evidence that absinthe ever contained the high concentrations of thujone that would have led to detrimental effects or that it has hallucinogenic or mind altering properties. The health problems experienced by chronic users were likely to have been caused by adulterants in inferior brands and by the high levels of alcohol present. Claims for beneficial effects must also be treated with some scepticism as again, the detrimental effects of the alcohol would presumably outweigh any benefits. It seems likely that the phenomenal success of absinthe during the 19th century was due to one factor, the French love of aniseed drinks. The modern equivalent of absinthe, pastis, is by far the most popular distilled spirit in France with 125 million litres being consumed annually. Perhaps the reason that so much absinthe was consumed, and absintheurs waxed so lyrically about it was simply because it tasted good."

Absinthe is now legal in most of the European Union, though it remains prohibited in the United States. If you do try absinthe, try not to end up like this perplexed soul; try to be more like this happy-seeming imbiber.

Labels: absinthe