Absinthe

As the British journalist Jad Adams shows in his fascinating, richly detailed book Hideous Absinthe: A History of the Devil in a Bottle (University of Wisconsin Press), the lore surrounding absinthe is far more important than its taste, which is similar to those of other anise-flavored drinks, or its special psychoactive effects, which remain a matter of dispute. In the emerald green liquid devotees see visions of poets and painters in Parisian cafés who stirred together genius and madness along with absinthe and water. And while La Fée Verte is right that some contemporary brands are closer than others to the original Swiss recipe, there has always been wide variation in formulas and production techniques—one reason the hazards and benefits of 19th-century absinthe are hard to pin down.

The question of absinthe authenticity is also complicated by the fact that even in its heyday, absinthe was often a deliberately chosen prop. For calculatedly unconventional figures such as Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Alfred Jarry, Oscar Wilde, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, absinthe was a symbol as well as an intoxicant. By imitating the habits of such well-known nonconformists, second- and third-rate talents hoped to look the part of the cutting-edge artist...more here