The green fairy of Parisian bohemia. Madness in a bottle: the story of a magical drink that drove you crazy - Absinthe
After the first glass you see things like thiswhat you want them to be. After
the second you see them as they were not.
Finally you see them for who they are
actually, and it's very scary.
Oscar Wilde, on drinking absinthe
Luxurious dark suit, top hat, thin cigarettes ... and a glass of absinthe. This is how we imagine the image of a decadent at the end of the 19th century. For us, modern people, absinthe and the culture of drinking it are integral attributes of the era. aestheticism and subtle decadence in European culture. Absinthe is a drink that managed to collect the richest collection of human emotions in its dark green bottle: people fell in love with it, it became a way of life, poems were dedicated to it, they saw it as the greatest source of inspiration... It was hated, banned, destroyed, called the curse of the nation. Despite all this, absinthe still exists today, and it has retained all its best properties, in contrast to people who have always treated him ambivalently.
What is absinthe? It's sturdy alcoholic drink, containing from 70% to 85% alcohol, its most important component is the extract bitter wormwood "Artemisia absintum" from which the name "absinthe" comes from. When wormwood is sublimated, a brown oily substance with a high concentration of essential oils is obtained, which contains up to 400 mg of thujone per hundred grams. In addition to wormwood, absinthe may also contain various proportions anise, fennel, mint, lemon balm, calamus, coriander, cardamom, angelica, hyssop and others fragrant herbs and spices.
Contrary to popular belief, the intoxicating and intoxicating effect of drinking absinthe is not due to the high alcohol content, but precisely the concentration of thujone. Absinthe with nai great content thujone is made in the Czech Republic and Switzerland. Czech stamps absinthe contains up to 100 mg/kg, Swiss - up to 70 mg/kg. In general, when absinthe was legal in France, the content of thujone in it reached 260 mg / kg. Until now, the most rich and high-quality absinthe is prepared independently at home.
Poster 1: The text in the bottom left corner reads "The bus is going to Charonton!" Charonton was an asylum for the mentally ill, it was located outside of Paris.
loose lifestyle and overuse absinthe shook the psyche of Vincent van Gogh. In the end, the artist ended up in a mental hospital in Arles, cut off his ear, and then attempted suicide.
By 1880, the volumes of absinthe and wine consumed in France were equal. If initially it was a rather expensive and difficult to prepare drink, now it has become both more accessible and more harmful. The "bourgeois habit" infected the working and lower classes. One of the reasons for such phenomena was the death of vineyards from phylloxera in the 1870s and 1880s and, as a result, the increase in the cost of wine and grape spirit. And then cheap varieties of absinthe began to be made from industrial alcohol. Once noble drink, which has now become 10 times cheaper than wine, turned out to be a real poison. Not surprisingly, by the end of the 19th century, absinthe was strongly associated with schizophrenia, suffering, and death. It was called "madness in a bottle" (French la folie en bouteille).
The catalyst for the beginning of the persecution of absinthe was a monstrous case in Switzerland in August 1905. Gene Landfray, a farmer and famous absinthe drinker, under the influence of large amounts of absinthe and other alcoholic beverages, shot his entire family to death. The use of a glass of mint liqueur, a glass of cognac, two cups of coffee with cognac and three liters of wine by the criminal on the same day somehow went unnoticed by the press and public opinion. This story took the front pages of European newspapers, resulting in 82,450 people signing a petition to the authorities to ban absinthe in Switzerland (the petition was granted in early 1906).
Vincent van Gogh (with his ear cut off)
However, despite the indignation of the guardians of morality and healthy lifestyle life, until the outbreak of the First World War, absinthe continued to be an integral element of Western culture and art. The first mention of absinthe in cinema took place in the 1899 French short film La Bonne Absinthe. It is curious that this tape was staged by the world's first female film director. Alice Guy. On January 7, 1913, the first feature-length silent film, Absinthe, was released in the United States.
The image of absinthe was often reflected in painting. in pictures Albert Meignan"Green Muse" (1895) and Victor Oliva“Drinking absinthe” (1901) depicts quite similar people, both presumably poets, who, after drinking the drink, are overtaken by the muse in the form of a “green fairy”, as if wanting to reveal a hitherto unknown truth, or show the way to another world.
At Pablo Picasso Both the self-portrait and the woman in The Absinthe Drinker (1901) have a lost look and a strange, thoughtful expression on her face. The great artist also painted a painting depicting a bottle of Pernod absinthe and a glass, he is also the creator of the sculpture Glass of Absinthe.
A more naturalistic depiction of absinthe and its adherents can be seen in the work Edgar Degas"Absinthe" (1876). Degas portrayed the artist Marcelin Debutin and the actress Ellen André at a table in the New Athens cafe. However, Ellen does not play herself at all, but a woman from the common people. She sits in a relaxed posture, her gaze tired and lost.
Poster 2: Death of the "Green Fairy". A poster expressing dissatisfaction with the ban on absinthe in Switzerland. Simultaneously with tension in society, tension in European politics also grew. The fire of the First World War ignited another war - the war against the "green fairy".
Directly in front of her is a glass of cloudy absinthe (the drink becomes cloudy from adding water to it), obviously not the first. To her left sits a man with signs of a hangover, and in front of him is mazagran, cold black coffee with seltzer water. The general impression is a heavy and unsightly morning for lovers of strong alcohol.
The most prosaic portrait of absinthe is depicted on canvas Edouard Manet Absinthe lover. On a wall ledge in a dirty dark alley sits a man in shabby clothes, with an overgrown face and almost imperceptible eyes. Next to him stands a glass with a cloudy greenish liquid, and on the ground lies empty bottle. E. Manet shows us a degraded alcoholic, as if warning what love for the “green fairy” can bring a person to.
When the French government realized that a terribly cheap and incredibly popular drink was leading to the degeneration of an entire nation, it took measures to organize active counter-propaganda: they began to hang posters against the use of absinthe on the streets.
In the 19th century, it was believed that absinthe was a genius for mediocrity, but death for a true genius. In the 80s of the XIX century, one word "absinthe" caused panic in many respectable Europeans, because this drink in their minds was strongly associated with madness. In France, absinthe was called "madness in a bottle", and the phrase "Absinthe drives you crazy" became the most popular slogan. anti-alcohol campaigns. When and where did absinthe originate? Why was this drink banned in France and Switzerland? "Green Fairy" or "Green Witch"? But first things first.
It is believed that absinthe appeared at the end of the 18th century, and was invented by Dr. Pierre Ordiner, who lived in the Swiss village of Couvet. According to legend, here he found wild wormwood and created his own special drink which quickly gained popularity in the area. Dr. Ordiner died in 1821 - by this time, the name "Green Fairy" and the glory of a tonic drink had already firmly entrenched in absinthe. Other sources believe that the Enrio sisters, who lived in the same Swiss village, were already making absinthe before the arrival of Dr. Ordiner, and that it was they who sold the recipe for this drink to a certain Major Dubier.
Be that as it may, when Major Dubier tried absinthe, he found that this drink cures indigestion, improves appetite, helps with fever and chills. Dubier was so impressed that he bought the recipe and started making absinthe too. In 1797, the major's daughter married Henri-Louis Perno, and then the Perno dynasty began, which gave its name to the brand of absinthe of the same name.
The Perno factory was a true example of efficiency and hygiene. By 1896, she was already producing 125,000 liters of absinthe a day! Everything went like clockwork, until August 11, 1901, lightning struck the factory. There was so much alcohol on the property that it took several days to put out the fire. Perhaps the fire would have been worse if one of the workers had not guessed to release huge tanks of absinthe into a nearby river. After that, its waters acquired a yellow- green color, and the smell of alcoholic vapors emanating from it resembled the breath of a drunkard and was heard for miles.
Drinking absinthe was one of the characteristic features Parisian life during the reign of Napoleon III (1852-1870) - this was a respectable bourgeois custom. The time between five and seven o'clock in the evening was called the "green hour", and the smell of absinthe hung in the air over the Parisian boulevards. Absinthe was believed to improve appetite before dinner, and the strict time allowed for drinking it, to some extent, protected people from abuse.
Given the strength of absinthe (the most respected brand, Perno, contained 60% alcohol), it was customary to drink no more than one serving. It was possible to drink absinthe before dinner or even before dinner, but if someone dared to drink it all night, this caused a contemptuous reaction from the waiters. The risk of absinthe abuse increased as people began to acquire a taste for the drink. More respectable absinthe drinkers, who were ashamed to drink a lot in public, soon learned to move from one cafe to another.
Alcoholics quickly appreciated absinthe, and soon the drink began to attract a wider range of consumers: bohemians, women, and the working class. In Émile Zola's novel The Trap, we find a mention of a carpenter who "stripped naked in the Rue Saint-Martin and died dancing the polka. He drank absinthe."
Customs changed, and now women could drink absinthe in cafes, and many of the absinthe drinkers did not dilute the drink with water, which was explained by the reluctance to drink too much liquid, because they wear a corset. There are more and more posters showing emancipated women drinking absinthe and even smoking.
Paintings of the same period more often tell a completely different story - the story of emaciated women, staring blankly into the void over a glass. Illustration: "Absinthe", Felicien Rops.
A very strong attraction almost immediately arose between absinthe, as the most powerful intellectual drink, and the Parisian bohemia. Absinthe occupies a special place in the history of French painting. Illustration: Édouard Manet, Bar at the Folies Bergère.
It is sometimes said about the artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec that his paintings are entirely painted with absinthe. Much is known about Toulouse-Lautrec's bitter drinking: his favorite cocktail was a mixture called the Earthquake, a deadly combination of brandy and absinthe. “You need to drink little, but often,” the artist said, and to maintain such a regime, he always took a cane with him, in which he kept a half-liter supply of absinthe and a small glass. Illustration: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, "In the Café La Mie".
“I assure you, madam, I can drink without risk. I’m almost on the floor anyway, ”Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec once said, hinting at his too small stature (a little over 150 cm). Unfortunately, unrestrained drunkenness and starving life caused a lot of harm to the artist, he began to get drunk from a very small dose, as is usually the case on last stage alcoholism. In addition to everything, Toulouse-Lautrec began to become paranoid.
Toulouse-Lautrec saw terrible monsters, it even seemed to him that the elephant located in the courtyard of the Moulin Rouge began to follow him. And on March 1, 1899, one of the artist's friends received a letter with sad Parisian news: "You will be sad to know that Toulouse-Lautrec was put in an insane asylum yesterday." In the photo: an elephant located in the courtyard of the famous Parisian cabaret "Moulin Rouge" until 1906.
What happened to Toulouse-Lautrec was told in different ways. Someone claimed that the artist had a persecution mania on the street, someone that he was caught by orderlies and placed in a psychiatric hospital at the request of his mother. Be that as it may, after being discharged from the hospital, Toulouse-Lautrec began to drink again, at first with restraint, again resorting to the "absinthe cane", and then more and more. Illustration: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge.
And in 1887, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec painted a portrait of Vincent van Gogh with a glass of absinthe on the table. It is said that it was Toulouse-Lautrec who addicted Van Gogh to this drink.
Also in 1887, Vincent van Gogh created a still life depicting a glass of absinthe and a decanter of water. The psychiatric experience that the artist had to go through repeatedly forced the researchers of Van Gogh's work to enter a purely clinical sphere. Some commentators directly connected all the artist's illnesses with the fact that he abused absinthe.
In 1859, Edouard Manet painted his first large canvas, which he called "The Absinthe Drinker". With this work, his career as an artist began rather awkwardly. The sitter was his acquaintance junk dealer and alcoholic, who could often be found in the Louvre area. The artist saw in this man some strange dignity, even aristocracy. Having finished work on the picture, Manet showed it to his teacher, who reacted sharply negatively: “Absinthe lover! Why draw such abominations? My poor friend, you are the absinthe drinker. You have lost your morals." In the future, the picture continued to make an unpleasant impression on almost everyone who saw it.
The famous painting by Edgar Degas "Absinthe", first called "In a Cafe" (1876), was accepted by the public even worse than the painting by Manet. “A person who values dignity and beauty will never call Absinthe a work of art,” the critic wrote. Someone even suggested that this painting depicts the poet Paul Verlaine, who was known for leading a terrible life, soaked through and through with absinthe.
Paul Verlaine became addicted to drinking very early, and the successive deaths of his father, beloved aunt and cousin only increased his drinking: "I attacked absinthe," he wrote. After some time, Verlaine married and seemed to come to his senses, but family happiness was soon destroyed by a catastrophe: Verlaine met the young poet Arthur Rimbaud and was captivated by him to the point of obsession, and when Rimbaud broke up with Verlaine, he shot him three times, wounding his former lover in the wrist . In the photo: Verlaine on the left, Rimbaud on the right.
Since then, Paul Verlaine has abandoned all hope of a decent life. He was even jailed for a month for threatening his mother with a knife, even though his mother demanded that he be acquitted. After this incident, Verlaine finally plunged into the life of the cafe, becoming the main celebrity of the Latin Quarter, but his poetic reputation was so strong that even the police were ordered not to disturb Verlaine, no matter what he did.
In Confession, written in 1895, Verlaine repents of his addiction to absinthe: “Absinthe! How terrible to think of those days and of more recent times ... One sip of a disgusting witch (what a fool called her a fairy or a green muse!), One sip captivated me, but then my drunkenness led to more serious consequences. In the photo: Paul Verdun in the interior of a Parisian cafe.
In August 1905, Swiss newspapers wrote about a terrible tragedy: thirty-year-old peasant Jean Lanfre, after drinking two glasses of absinthe, shot his pregnant wife in the head, and then killed his daughters (four-year-old Rose and two-year-old Blanche). Lanfre also tried to shoot himself, but survived. Staggering, he went out into the yard, where he fell asleep, clutching the dead body of his youngest daughter in his arms. The public reaction to this tragedy was unusually violent, and it was not at all that Lanfre was an impenetrable drunkard who drank up to five liters of wine every day. People were sure that absinthe was to blame for what had happened. Illustration: "Absinthe is death."
A few weeks after the tragedy, residents of the surrounding towns and villages filed a petition in which 82,450 people demanded that absinthe be banned in Switzerland, which was done already in 1906. In France, absinthe was banned in 1915, when they thought about the national problems of alcoholism and the unpreparedness of the army for the First World War. By the way, the last significant appearance of absinthe in art, just before its ban, was the cubist sculpture of Pablo Picasso "A Glass of Absinthe" (1914).
Absinthe – a wormwood bitter with a very high alcohol content, which, due to its emerald color, has received the name "Green Fairy". There is probably no other drink that would be so strongly associated with the French bohemia. No wonder the classics of literature devoted thousands of lines to this cult drink, great artists depicted it on their canvases, and even in films of a hundred years ago, you can find shots with absinthe. But, like many legends and myths, absinthe is fraught with an ominous connotation.
Absinthe, like spirits whiskey and gin, began its history as medicine. Invented in 1792 by a certain Dr. Pierre Ordinier, absinthe was first used by the French colonial army as an antimalarial. But several special properties made it attractive to absinthe drinkers (or absinthe drinkers) - people who abused absinthe in everyday life. 
It is known that the composition of absinthe includes anise, fennel, mint, lemon balm, angelica and other herbs. However, its most important component is wormwood. Even the name absinthe comes from the Latin name wormwood – Artemisia absinthium, which combines the name of the goddess Artemis, whose sacred plant was considered wormwood, and the Greek definition of " apsinthion", meaning "not drinking".
Wormwood contains a large amount thujone- a substance that has a strong effect on the brain. In addition, a high concentration of alcohol is required to retain essential oils, which is why absinthe has a strength of about 70 degrees. With this combination, this drink can intoxicate the mind and cause unusual sensations and even hallucinations. This is the second reason why the insidious absinthe is nicknamed " green fairy ».
However, many representatives creative bohemia It didn't scare me, but, on the contrary, it attracted me. Famous picture " Absinthe drinker» Czech artist Victor Oliva(1861-1928), which hangs on the wall of the historical cafe "Slavia" in Prague, as if visualizes this property of absinthe, to which Oliva became addicted, having moved to Paris.
Absinthe has been the muse and "mistress" of many poets and artists since the 18th century. The magical potion of wormwood tincture was favored by such masters of words and brushes as Charles Baudelaire, Maupassant, Toulouse Lautrec, Picasso, Monet and many other outstanding creative personalities. They often drew their inspiration from absinthe, blurring the line between the real and the "absinthe" world. Dependence on this "cocaine of the 19th century" famous English philosopher, writer and aesthete Oscar Wilde converted to "romantic theories":
There is nothing more poetic in the world than a glass of absinthe. I equate the pleasure of absinthe with the pleasure of watching the sunset,” wrote Oscar Wilde. - If you drink enough of this drink, you will see everything you want - beautiful, amazing things
Since then, absinthe has been associated with fin de siecle, the decadence of the 90s of the XIX century, the finest hour of absinthe, when everything green was considered exquisite, and absinthe was credited with the ability to endow a person with extraordinary acuity of sensations, a clear and vivid perception of the world.
Absinthe is a bitter drink, so sweet water was traditionally added to it. It happened like this: one part of absinthe was poured into a glass, then a long and narrow spatula with patterned holes was placed on top of the surface, and 1-2 pieces of sugar were placed on it. Then cold water was poured onto the sugar in a thin stream, from which it slowly melted, and sweet water. It's classic french way absinthe use. Other methods involved setting fire to the sugar soaked in the drink to form a sweet caramel.
Preparation fragrant drink, ceremonies and etiquette were an intricate ritual, in honor of which posters, postcards and even postage stamps were published in France. Many of them were made in a cheerful, cheerful way.
In the cafe where absinthe lovers gathered, a more courtly atmosphere reigned, which he successfully conveyed on his canvases Jean Bero- French salon painter-impressionist, who gained fame with genre works depicting the life of Parisian secular society. The presence of female images in many of his paintings, depicting Parisian cafes, is not accidental. Paris at the end of the 19th century was flooded with various intoxicating substances, some of which were very popular with exalted secular ladies. fashionable dessert there was a strawberry on the air. Morphine was also in fashion, which among the bohemian intelligentsia was considered a sign of progressive views. The best jewelers sold " women» exquisite silver and gold-plated syringes. Alexandre Dumas lamented that morphine was rapidly becoming "women's absinthe". But the real “female drug” was still absinthe. This is evidenced by the paintings of Jean Bero.
Paintings also became the property of history - “ absinthe drinker» Manet, «Absinthe» by Degas (originally called «Sketch for a French Cafe») and « Absinthe drinker» Spaniard Pablo Picasso. It is noteworthy that absinthe for Picasso became part of the urban, "modern" world, opposed to the still lifes of Matisse and Cezanne. His brightest absinthe masterpiece is the sculpture “Glass of absinthe” (1914). Picasso made 6 bronze copies of the sculpture, each of which is painted in its own way.
French post-impressionist painter Toulouse-Lautrec I also used absinthe regularly. He usually went out at the end of the day strangle the parrot
"- an expression that existed in Montmartre and meant "drink a glass of absinthe." It was rumored that the cripple artist made a flask from his cane, which he filled with a magical drink.
It was said about the paintings of Toulouse-Lautrec that they were painted entirely with absinthe. They also claim that it was thanks to these canvases that he became addicted to wormwood tincture. Vincent Van Gogh. In 1887, he even immortalized a glass of absinthe, which, in his words, "is as poetic as anything in this world."
But a year later, he attacked his friend Paul Gauguin with a razor in his hands, after which the doctors placed him in a ward for violent patients. Researchers tend to believe that the manifestation of aggression was caused by frequent use absinthe, and many art historians believe that it was the hallucinations from absinthe that became the source of color shades in the paintings of a genius. "Road with a cypress and a star" (1890) was one of the last paintings he painted in the hospital.
Contrary to the enthusiastic attitude towards absinthe of most representatives of Bohemia, obsessed with the idea Baudelaire that this drink ' gives life a joyful color and illuminates the dark nooks and crannies of being”, their abuse ended very badly.
And yet, the end of the 80s in France was a high point for absinthe. Absentomania then reached such proportions that the time between five and seven o'clock in the evening was called none other than l'heureverte (green time
). During these hours, the streets of Paris, from the Latin Quarter to Montmartre, were filled with the vapors of wormwood, and the city's popular cafes were filled with modernist bohemians sipping emerald liquid.
Experiencing new horizons of sensuality and inspiration, the drink in different times did not ignore Emile Zola, Modigliani, Victor Hugo, Remarque, Ernest Dawson and Edgar Alan Poe . The latter was an alcoholic and often drank a mixture of absinthe and brandy. For a short time, towards the end of his life, Poe was able to give up drinking, but his friends seduced him again, and he soon died at the Washington University Hospital, suffering from hallucinations and delirium tremens.
One of the odious personalities of that time was Alfred Jarry(Alfred Jarry, 1873-1907). This French playwright entered the history of world literature as the author of one play "King Ubu", written not without the influence of absinthe. The second part of the play was a caustic satire on a well-fed, fat-mad France. Contemporaries "did not understand" the author, who, like Rimbaud or Lautreamont, instead of reflecting a serene atmosphere " belle epoch”, anticipated the rebellious spirit of the coming times.
History judged differently: the grotesque comic farce written by Jarry in 1896 became a cult play of the early 20th century.
Not understood and not accepted by the high society, the author turned his existence into a conscious and cruel happening, shocking secular society. Legends circulated in France about his public antics and extravagant lifestyle. Of course, all his attempts to break through to success and escape from the bondage of debt were unsuccessful.
The last seven years of Jarry's life are the years of his rapid and almost conscious self-destruction. The famous French avant-garde poet Guillaume Apollinaire said that Jarry on an empty stomach drank a half glass of absinthe with vinegar, adding a drop of ink there, claiming that this improved his digestion.
According to Jarry's friend, the writer Raschild - " Alfred's day began by drinking two liters of white wine; between ten and twelve o'clock three drinks of absinthe followed each other; at dinner, he washed down fish or a steak with red or white wine, alternating it with fresh portions of absinthe ... He was so saturated with ether that it was felt from a distance. He walked like a lunatic... I think that he died long before his physical death, and, as he himself once decided to write, his decaying brain, like some kind of mechanism, continued to work on the other side of the grave.».
Alfred Jarry received recognition after his death, when his work was rediscovered by Apollinaire and the Surrealist movement. In 1926, the famous actor and playwright Antonin Artaud created his own modern theater, posthumously naming it after Alfred Jarry, the first "rebel of the French stage."
No less sad is the fate of his namesake, the French poet, playwright and prose writer, one of the largest representatives of romanticism. Alfred de Musset (1810 -1857). It is known that he also constantly poisoned himself with absinthe and, having drunk himself, died at a fairly young age.
The symbolism of the green color of absinthe occupies a special place in the work of the great French poet Arthur Rimbaud
(1854-1891). Where it has a green color, an allusion is almost certainly created with a drunken feast, which is perceived as a symbol of peace and happiness (poem of sounds "Vowels"). And in the famous poem "Sisters of Mercy" he commemorates absinthe as his "green Muse".
The sonnet appeared in the footsteps of the young man's journey through southern Belgium, where he visited the "Green Zucchini" - an inn in the city of Charleroi. As contemporaries recall, everything in this tavern - from the walls of the house to the furniture - was painted green. At five o'clock in the afternoon came the so-called "green hour", the hour of aperitif, when regular visitors to drinking establishments sat down at the tables to drink absinthe.
His friend Paul Verlaine- the bohemian poet of Paris, who sang of this drink in his youth, writes in his autobiographical "Confession" (1895): " What kind of idiot dubbed him the magical, green Muse?!". He cursed the cloudy green liquid and called absinthe the "green witch", demanded that this "source of madness and crime, idiocy and shame" be banned. He developed such a sharp attitude towards absinthe because of his own passion for this drink. On archival photos taken in a Parisian cafe, he always sits with a glass of absinthe.
A sublime and sensitive man, in moments of absinthe eclipse, he attacked his wife, fired a revolver at his friend Rimbaud, demanded money from his elderly mother with a knife in his hands. At the same time, according to his friends, even on his deathbed, under his pillow, a bottle of absinthe was hidden. The "Green Witch" just did not let go of its fans.
The complex, ambiguous relationship between Rimbaud and Verlaine is shown in Agnieszka Holland's talented film Total Eclipse (1995). It stars Leonardo DiCaprio (Arthur Rimbaud) and David Thewlis (Paul Verlaine).
By the way, first mention of absinthe in a movie took place in the 1899 French short La Bonne Absinthe. It is curious that this tape was staged by the world's first female film director Alice Guy.
In modern cinema, absinthe most often appears as the author's desire to emphasize aestheticism or decadent motifs. In horror films, he plays the role of an element close to the goth subculture, a prominent representative of which is rock singer Marilyn Manson. Many people know addiction Marilyn Manson to absinthe. He himself often talked about the influence of this drink on his work. Manson even released Mansinthe absinthe. At $41 a bottle, the drink is 66.6 degrees ABV, which is pretty symbolic given Manson's craving for all kinds of hell. On one of the posters, a shocking showman holds a severed human ear with a hint of Van Gogh, who was distraught from absinthe.
But even horror films highlight the detrimental health effects of absinthe. So, in the Hughes Brothers film From hell"(2001) its main character - Inspector Fred Abberline ( Johnny Depp) under the influence of absinthe sees images of the victims of Jack the Ripper. And in the mystical drama of the Irish director Neil Jordan " Interview with a Vampire "(1994), based on the novel of the same name, the vampire Lestat (Tom cruise), who drank the blood "infected" with an extract of bitter wormwood, feels acute poisoning threatening his life.
It should be said that part of French society already at that time began to demonize this magical aperitif. They proclaimed that, by its nature, this drink is close to vermouth, in origin - to gin, but in spiritual content - to the devil. Some compared absinthe to Dr. Jekyll's potion and believed that the wormwood drink was " a genius for mediocrity and a killer of real geniuses».
Indeed, more and more people who used the drink showed signs of "absentism" - inappropriate behavior and temporary insanity. Some even committed suicide. The drink began to be considered a kind of ticket to a lunatic asylum, called the green curse of France. Doctors sounded the alarm, calling absinthe the main cause of alcoholism.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the entire prudent part of society took up arms against him. Entire communities of absinthe opponents were organized, holding city rallies and publishing anti-absinthe posters, which depicted the execution of the "green witch". Healthy Alternative absinthe advertising poster "La Kolamarque" represented Coca-Cola.
(almost like drinking cola instead of whiskey. Only here everything was serious).
But even then there were ideological defenders of absinthe. One of the ardent defenders of the cursed drink was a prominent occult ideologist of the 19th-20th centuries, an English poet, magician and Satanist. Aleister Crowley(1875-1947). In the twentieth century, his name became almost synonymous with magic.
Crowley devoted many of his works to the glory of absinthe. In his essay " green goddess"he justifies absinthe and says that one cannot judge it by its shortcomings and abuses of it.
« We do not curse the sea, where there are shipwrecks, and we do not forbid lumberjacks to use axes only out of sympathy for Charles I or Louis XVI. Associated with absinthe are not only special vices and dangers, but also graces and virtues that no other drink can give.«.
In Crowley's poetics, absinthe does not seem to be an alcoholic drink at all, but something like amaranth, an unfading flower symbolizing immortality. Although, as we have already seen, this is far from the case.
“What makes absinthe a special cult? So it seems as if the first inventor of absinthe was really a magician, persistently looking for a combination of sacred potions that would purify, strengthen and endow the human soul with fragrance. Undoubtedly, if you drink absinthe correctly, this is not difficult to achieve. From one portion, the breath becomes freer, the spirit is lighter, the heart is hot, and the soul and mind better perform those great tasks for which, perhaps, they were created by the Creator.».
But it was not possible to protect the “magic absinthe” for completely “earthly reasons”. He became a victim of his own popularity. Some manufacturers, in pursuit of profit, have begun to produce cheaper analogues of the drink, diluting it as extremely harmful to human health. blue vitriol, which was necessary to give a cheap fake a green color. The counterfeiters used low-quality alcohol with a high content of methanol and fusel oils, masking the smell with sharp-smelling herbs. Increasing poisoning made it easier for European governments to ban absinthe. It has been called the main cause of alcoholism at the turn of the century. Absinthe was first banned by Switzerland in 1907, then by France in 1915, followed by most European countries. So the rise in popularity of absinthe lasted only a decade before oblivion for a long hundred years, during which many writers remembered it with nostalgia.
For example, the Irish poet, Nobel Prize winner in literature in 1923, William Yeats wrote in connection with the departure of absinthe: “ Then in 1900 everyone got off their stilts, and no one else drank absinthe with black coffee, no one went crazy».
And the researcher Robert Burnand generally considered the disappearance of absinthe a symptom of cultural decline:
“The spirit of the boulevards is dead. Where can you find time again to wander, dream, sharpen your mind, shoot arrows?... Absinthe, the magic absinthe of the Green Hour, the jade flower that bloomed on every terrace, deliciously poisoned the Parisians, at least giving them a rich imagination, at that time how other cocktails caused nausea without delight "
.Perhaps the spirit of absinthe in our time was evoked by the spells of nostalgic sufferers: at the beginning of the 21st century, quite unexpectedly, absinthe reappeared on the shelves of wine boutiques in Europe, albeit lightened and updated beyond recognition.
“Absinthe: if you drink enough of this drink, you will see everything you want to see - beautiful, amazing things ...” Oscar Wilde.
So, after conducting many experiments with moonshine, I encroached on the holy absinthe. I really wanted to experience the sensations that they write on the Internet. I tried the store, but I didn’t experience any special sensations. Later I learned that thujone, a substance that gives an unforgettable effect, which many great people of past centuries sang, is removed, leaving only taste sensations. I took the original recipe, found on the Internet.
Modern absinthe was supposedly invented in 1792 by an extraordinary French doctor named Pierre Ordiner, who fled the French Revolution to a small village in western Switzerland. On his horseback rides, Dr. Ordiner is said to have discovered wormwood growing wild in the hills in the area. Like most doctors in the country, he prepared his own remedies, and after becoming familiar with the use of absinthe in ancient Rome, he began experimenting with it. Dr. Ordiner's recipe probably included the following herbs: wormwood (Artemisia absinthium), anise (Pimpinella anisum), hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis), fennel, lemon balm (a type of mint), and some coriander, veronica, chamomile, parsley, and even spinach. The seventy-degree elixir quickly became popular as a remedy for all diseases in the town and was nicknamed the Green Fairy (La Fee Verte). After his death, the recipe probably went to the Enrio sisters, who sold the recipe to Major Dubier, who in turn, together with his son and son-in-law Henri-Louis Pernot, opened the first enterprise for the manufacture and sale of absinthe.
This is an emerald green drink, very bitter (due to the presence of absinthe) and therefore traditionally poured through a special spoon with sugar into a glass of water. After that, the drink becomes cloudy white, as essential oils fall out of alcohol solution. In the 19th century absinthe becomes the drink of bohemia. He was drunk and praised by Maupassant, Van Gogh, Rimbaud, Edgar Poe, Baudelaire, Apollinaire, Oscar Wilde, Edgar Degas, Manet, Picasso, Remarque, William Thackeray, O. Henry. Absinthe becomes very popular among actors, artists, poets and writers.
It was thought to stimulate creative process. However, in the 50s of the XIX century, concern began to appear about the results of its chronic consumption. It was believed that chronic absinthe consumption led to a syndrome called absenteeism, which was characterized by addiction, hyperexcitability and hallucinations.
The association of absinthe with the bohemian lifestyle also added to fears about its effect, as happened with marijuana in America. Subsequently, absinthe was banned in many countries at the beginning of the 20th century. There is another interesting opinion about the reasons for the prohibition of absinthe - purely economic. The fact is that the rapidly growing popularity of absinthe began to lead to a decrease in the consumption of wine - the main drink in many European countries. Fearing this, the wine industry lobby pushed for absinthe to be banned.
absinthe recipe
The production of absinthe includes 3 stages:
- infusion
- Distillation
- Coloring and aging
Infusion
tincture components
- Alcohol. I found it from a friend). I took 1100 ml
- Herbs. Sold in pharmacies and markets. If you can’t get something, it’s okay, but wormwood, anise, fennel should be a must. Spices like nutmeg and coriander are best taken whole, not ground into flour.
You will need:
- Wormwood 100 g
- Green anise 60 g
- Fennel 60 g
- Star anise (aka star anise) 20 g
- Mint 20 g
- Coriander 15 g
- Cardamom 10 g
- Chamomile 30 g
- Nutmeg 10 g
- Oregano 30 g
- Melissa 20 g
- Thyme 10 g
(I traveled all the pharmacies of the city and markets in search of herbs)
Clean all herbs from the stems, because. they play the role of ballast, absorbing alcohol. Break the nutmeg into several pieces. We mix all the herbs and fall asleep through a funnel into two liter vodka bottles or 3 liter jar(plastic is not recommended). Alcohol is diluted to 85% (according to the recipe of the 19th century) and poured there. Herbs should take up about 2/3 of the volume. Next, we remove these bottles on the battery and cover with a rag so that the light does not fall. We are waiting for 2 weeks, but longer is better (I kept it for a month).
Here I already filtered and added a little less than a liter of water to the grass, gurgled and filtered it out. It turned out such a mess. It is impossible to drink it, bitter to horror: 
The biggest problem for me was - cutting off the sukhoparnik from the process (tubes of different diameters), insight came at the bedside of a comatose patient, to whom I put a gastric tube. Eureka - gastric tube!
Actually small fire process went through: 
We cut off the first 50 grams, there are supposedly extra oils: 
But we do not pour, but we drink)))
I didn’t have a piece of sugar, there is a way out)) 
Just add water) Turned white immediately. The smell is divine! 
He grunted, damn it, the feeling is strange, the torch is not alcoholic, but some kind of strange one, like they put it in the ass)))
We continue the process, put a beer glass with a thermometer, be sure to check the degree, absinthe is not lower than 70%:
Next to the jar with food foil, so I closed the liquid from the light so that chlorophyll would not decompose and the green fairy would not turn pale: 
It turned out four of 250 ml. 
250 poured into a separate container and for five hours of greenery with herbs:
- Mint 15 g
- St. John's wort 5 g
- Thyme 5 g
- Melissa 5 g
- lemon zest
For coloring, we take the first distillate obtained and add herbs to it. We insist 5-6 hours, then, filtering through cotton wool or gauze, pour into the second part of the distillate.
Here's what happened:
A little weed will not hurt)) Do you feel the green fairy?)))))) 
After aging, after a week. Sorry, I could not resist in the arts :))) 
Caramel cap cap cap))) 
Added pineapple juice. The insides warm up at a time, euphoria from the first glass))) 
For reference:
Absinthe is an alcoholic drink made from the extract of wormwood (Artemisia absinthium). Even one and a half thousand years before the birth of Christ, the Egyptians appreciated this drink as an excellent medicine. Ancient absinthe was different from the liquor that Verlaine and Picasso drank, wormwood leaves were simply soaked in wine or alcohol. It is most likely that the word absinthe comes from the Greek word "apsinthion", which means "undrinkable", possibly due to its bitter taste. Pythagoras recommended absinthe as a fertility aid. Hipocrates prescribed it as a remedy for jaundice, rheumatism, anemia and menstrual cramps. The Roman scholar Pliny the Elder called the tincture "apsinthium" in the first century AD. It is known that a chariot champion was supposed to drink a goblet of absinthe so that he would not forget that even fame has its bitterness.
I haven’t used a drink in a normal dosage yet, not when, today I’m on duty, maybe tomorrow I’ll try the charm of a green fairy.
In the second half of the 19th century, absinthe was the most popular alcoholic drink in France. Artists called it a “green fairy” that could inspire inspiration, others considered the drink almost a panacea for all diseases, and still others noted with concern that absinthe adversely affects a person and can cause hallucinations. In part, each of them was right. But at the beginning of the twentieth century, this drink was banned for almost 100 years.
There are several versions of the origin of absinthe. Some researchers believe that this drink appeared in 1792 in the Swiss city of Kuva. It was made by the Enrio sisters. Their distilled wormwood-anise tincture is called "Bon Extrait d'Absinthe". The sisters sold their drug through the doctor Pierre Ordiner. According to another version, Pierre Ordiner himself is the author of absinthe. He prescribed this elixir as a cure for all diseases.
In the 1840s, during the colonial wars in North Africa, absinthe was indispensable in the rations of every French soldier. It was believed to disinfect and protect against malaria and dysentery. This practice was popular among the military until the First World War.
From the soldiers, the habit of absinthe was adopted by the colonists, and then the whole of France began to consume the green drink. By the second half of the 19th century, the popularity of absinthe equaled that of wine. If at first absinthe, due to its high cost, was considered a drink for the upper strata of society, then over time everyone got the opportunity to use it.
Such a "fall" strong drink several factors contributed. First, the workers achieved a reduction in the working day to 8 hours, i.e., they had free time. Secondly, there was an increase in wages. Thirdly, in the 1870-1880s. the vineyard fields suffered from the invasion of insects, which led to an increase in the cost of wine and grape spirit, which was previously part of absinthe. Manufacturers began to use industrial alcohol, which reduced the price of green drink by 7-10 times.
If in 1874 the French consumed 700,000 liters of absinthe a year, by 1910 this figure had risen to 36 million liters. Absinthe was called "madness in a bottle" (la folie en bouteille). In the newspaper "The New York Times” wrote that 20-year-old French women often die of cirrhosis of the liver, because they drink undiluted absinthe.
In the 19th century, it was believed that "absinthe is a genius for mediocrity, but death for a true genius." The brightest representatives of art, including Pablo Picasso, Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Oscar Wilde, were "fans" of strong drink. The press often flashed cartoons on the topic: "absinthe as a source of inspiration." Under one of these sketches was the inscription: “Amazing! I have already drunk four absinthes, but have not yet written a quatrain... Garzon! Absinthe!" Or you could see a picture with a disheveled artist who ran out of money on the 7th glass of absinthe, and he understands that inspiration appears only after the 8th portion of the "green fairy".
Absinthe was popular in many European countries, but by the beginning of the twentieth century, scientists and politicians began to increasingly speak negatively about pernicious effect drink. In 1905, the story of the Swiss farmer Jean Lanfray, who killed his wife and daughters in a state of extreme intoxication, was widely publicized. He drank two glasses of absinthe, seven glasses of wine, brandy coffee. The authorities, however, focused only on absinthe, and by 1906 this drink was banned in Switzerland. A few years later, this alcoholic drink was declared illegal in other European countries. The ban on the production of absinthe in France was lifted only in 2011.
Each country has its own drink, which is considered a matter of national pride. These
, perhaps, will surprise anyone.
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