Absinthe was once banned in some countries. It's back on shelves, but still courting controversy.
Banned in some countries for almost a century, the drink was supposedly a source of madness and crime, even blamed for artist Vincent van Gogh chopping off his ear.
" there isn't enough thujone in a couple of bottles of absinthe to poison a person. You're not going to get thujone poisoning from too much absinthe. You're going to get alcohol poisoning," Rail says. It was said to have hallucinogenic properties that could spur creative genius but may also plunge an individual into depths of insanity. This was all very overstated and largely incorrect, Rail says."It inspires a lot of really good daydreams … You think about the past, but you can also think about the future."By the late-19th century, France was in the midst of an identity crisis."People were talking about the decline of French civilisation," Rail says.
But its eventual acceptance was tied up less in a grand fight for the green fairy and more in not-very-bohemian trade and capitalism. Rail says that even though today's absinthe is largely the same as what people drank historically, a small group of people want to get their hands on a bottle made before the bans of the early 1900s.
Green Fairy Belle Époque Wormwood Thujone Bohemian Absinthism Forgery Fraud Absintheurs Alcohol Drinking Evan Rail Late Night Live
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