Wormwood's been around for years - long before absinthe was a twinkle in Dr. Pierre Ordinaire's eye (wormwood is the ingredient in absinthe that gives it its hallucinogenic properties).
Early references can be found in the Bible, and it's the following passage from Revelation that has caused controversy over recent years: "And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter." (Revelation 8:10-11 KJV)
Wormwood has been seen as closely connected with the apocalypse. Not surprising then, that when people spotted that 'Chernobyl' translates as 'wormwood', there was mass foreboding. Will a nuclear disaster destroy the world? Or is it just an eerie coincidence.
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1814
"The Star-Spangled Banner" was only officially made the national anthem by Congress in 1931. The last verse especially has controversial resonance today:
O thus be it ever when free-men shall stand Between their lov'd home and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace,
may the heav'n-rescued land Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust!"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
1830
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1871
Verlaine had a famously tempestuous relationship with Rimbaud, with whom he fell in love when Rimbaud was a teenage poet and asked him for literary advice. The two poets traveled together for a time, and Verlaine helped Rimbaud achieve fame in Paris. As they grew apart there were huge fights, and Verlaine ended up shooting Rimbaud in the wrist. Rimbaud pressed charges and Verlaine went to prison for two years. Bob Dylan wittily referred to this love affair in his album 'Blood on the Tracks':
"Situations have ended sad,
relationships have all been bad,
mine have been like Verlaine's and Rimbaud's".
Verlaine spent his later years drinking absinthe in the cafes of Paris, and his late poetry often reflects on the cliché of a celebrity poet pickled in absinthe. He died in 1896 at a prostitute's home.
1888
There are so many versions of this story. The most common (and plausible) is that Van Gogh cut off his left earlobe, put it in an envelope and gave it to a prostitute named Rachel saying "Guard this object carefully". But of course there are conspiracy theories. Did Gauguin in fact cut off Van Gogh's ear during a drunken duel and try to cover it up?
Some doctors now think that the artist may have had a congenital brain lesion, aggravated by the absinthe. After the ear incident he was hospitalised for a time.
1895
1901
These paintings are characteristic of what is known as Picasso's 'blue period' (1901-1904), during which time he created blue-tinted, serious paintings of society's outcasts, including prostitutes, beggars and fellow artists.
Picasso fit right into the bohemian Parisian lifestyle of his contemporaries, a life coloured by celebrities and fellow absinthe-drinkers. He married twice and had four children by three women, often maintaining a number of mistresses at any one time.
1908
The Jean Lanfray 'absinthe murder' had been swiftly followed by another in Geneva. A man named Sallaz had binged on absinthe and hacked his wife to death. Another petition in Geneva got 35,000 signatures. Politicians suggested compromises - absinthe was big business in Switzerland at that time - but in 1908 it was finally banned.
1910
1912
Picasso depicted absinthe in a number of media during his career, and the changes in his thinking and artistic progress can be charted by his changing depiction of "the green fairy". We have earlier seen the "Woman Drinking Absinthe" (1901) which demonstrates a realist approach, and also a focus on the human form, while this painting marks Picasso's move towards cubism.
1914
Picasso explored cubism through sculpture as well as painting. Picasso was concerned with spatial proportion and perspective, and creating sculpture allowed the artist to fully explore the implications of cubist painting. Picasso also created cubist sculptures using non-artistic materials like scraps of wood, metal and paper: "Mandolin" and "Clarinet" were two such sculptures.
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1805
Shortly after this, other copy-cat absinthe brands were created, including Oxygenee, Terminus, Pernot, Armand Guy and others. The current owner of the Guy distillery, Francois Guy, was instrumental in the re-legalization of absinthe in France, conducting research in order to legitimize the drink.
1821
Napoleon was killed by his wallpaper. No really. It was dyed with Scheele's Green, a pigment used to die fabric and paper from the 1770s. When the pigment becomes damp, mould changes the copper arsenite contained in the dye to arsenic vapour. This probably didn't kill Napoleon by itself, but, when combined with a nasty stomach ulcer, the poison pushed him over the edge.
1840
1850
When his sons Louis-Alfred and Fritz took over in 1850 the factory was producing over 20,000 litres of absinthe a day.
Pernod Fils became one of the most successful and biggest companies in France. It was also pioneering in its attitudes to employee rights, and in 1873 a scheme was introduced at the company's own expense to insure its workers against accidents, provide medical assistance and a pension.
1861
How the President got his beard
In the autumn of 1860 Abraham Lincoln was running for the President of the United States. Less than a month before Election Day he received a letter from 11 year old Grace Redell in Westfield. An extract follows:
"If you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you. You would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President".
And that's how the President got his beard.
1876
L'Absinthe, one of Degas's most celebrated works, is also one of his most controversial. It was exhibited in London in 1893 and raised many questions: was it acceptable to paint poverty?
George Moore wrote in the Speaker on 25 February 1893:
"The woman that sits beside the artist was at the Elysée Monmartre until two in the morning, then she went to the ratmort and had a soupe aux choux; she lives in the Rue Fontaine, or perhaps the Rue Breda; she did not get up until half-past eleven; then she tied a few soiled petticoats round her, slipped on that peignor, thrust her feet into those loose morning shoes, and came down to the café to have an absinthe before breakfast. Heavens! - what a slut! A life of idleness and low vice is upon her face; we read there her whole life. The tale is not a pleasant one, but it is a lesson."
1887
1891
Rimbaud's last years were spent as a very successful merchant in Ethiopia. Some say he was tired of the hedonistic, dissolute, artistic lifestyle he led with Verlaine in Paris, others that he was seeking to fund it. Either way, he was forced back to France due to an infection in his leg which was quickly amputated, but to no avail - he died shortly afterwards.
1900
Oscar Wilde is one of the most famous absinthe drinkers - we even named our pre-mixed cocktail 'Wildemule' after him here at Sebor Absinth TM. One of the most quotable men ever to have lived, he certainly didn't fail us when it came to absinthe.
"What difference is there between a glass of absinthe and a sunset?" he pondered.
If that wasn't encouragement enough, he lures in the absinthe newcomer with some helpful advice: "The first stage is like ordinary drinking, the second when you begin to see monstrous and cruel things. But if you can persevere you will enter in upon the third stage when you see things that you want to see."
1905
Jean Lanfray's frenzy hit the front pages of most European newspapers. That he had supposedly drunk two glasses of absinthe eclipsed the fact that he was known to be a drunkard, consuming huge quantities of wine daily. The incident sparked a backlash against absinthe, with a petition signed by almost a third of the Vaud region's population (82,000 people) in just a few weeks.
1910
Absinthe can get its green colour artificially, or through certain production methods, where chlorophyll is kept in the absinthe by steeping wormwood and other plants in the liquid. This chlorophyll will then gradually break down on exposure to light, and over time, and the colour will become a paler green and eventually amber or brown. That's why vintage absinthes are often amber, not green at all.
1913
The Grand Guignol was an apt venue for this striking play. The theatre was well-known for its pioneering attitude to theatrical subject matter - the Paris underworld was depicted with graphic violence and sexuality. There was a sense that stage and audience merged: the audience was often spurted with fake blood, while the characters and happenings on stage were larger-than-life caricatures of their own lives. The theatre, too, was tiny, and the atmosphere contributed to a sense of intimacy and involvement, as well as mass debauchery.
1915
France didn't repeal this law until 2001, but it was modified in 1988 to allow for certain forms of absinthe to be sold, although not under that name. The current regulations in France mean that products labeled 'absinthe' cannot be sold within the country, although they can be produced and exported. Absinthe is therefore usually labeled "spiritueux a base de plantes d'absinthe" ("wormwood-based spirits"). Swiss absinthe brands also often need reformatting for France, as Fenchone, a chemical found in fennel, is also restricted to 5mg/l.
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2001
The film features the drinking of absinthe in the early 1900's. Kylie Minogue plays "the green fairy", entrancing the Parisian underworld. Baz Lehrman's depiction of this fairy neatly encapsulates the iconic status of the temptress absinthe at the time. Absinthe held in its murky green waters both the promise of magic and the threat of self-destruction.
2002
From Hell was shot in Prague in the Czech Republic, where they built a 1900's London for the film set. This brilliantly told story of the infamous "Jack The Ripper" is by far the best film on the subject. Absinthe features as heavily in the film as it did in the 'on-set' parties. The film stars Johnny Depp & Robbie Coltrane.
