What is the Green Fairy?
By Chelsie Vandaveer
October 28, 2003
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Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Vincent van Gogh, Absinthe Fairy—>Click here.
The place: Paris. The crowd: artists, writers, businessmen, ex-soldiers. The time: fin-de-siècle, the end of the 19th century. The drink: La Fée Verte, absinthe.
In the bistros of Paris, the clear green liqueur was served almost ritualistically. Absinthe glasses held a shot or so of absinthe, a decorative slotted spoon with a sugar cube sat over the glass, and cold water drizzled over the sugar dripped into the liqueur. Absinthe changes with the addition of water; monoterpenes come out of solution causing cloudiness or la louche. Absinthe was never sipped 'neat';
it is too bitter and the alcohol content too high.
Absinthe is an herbal liqueur; the monoterpenes come from various herbs: thujone from absinthe wormwood (Artemisia absinthe Linnaeus), fenchone from fennel, anethole from anise, citrale from melissa (lemon balm), and pinocamphone from hyssop. Thujone is proven to cause hallucinations, convulsions (absinthe epilepsy), and permanent neurological damage. ("Infamous 'van Gogh' beverage", Kathleen Scalise, UC Berkeley press release, 22 March 2000) Absinthe alcoholism was a medically-recognized condition in European hospitals. As early as 1708, there were warnings of wormwood's injury to the nervous system.
But absinthe was so popular that most pharmacists had their own formulations and continued to sell absinthe copycat tonics. Nor were all these tonics safely made. Many were simply ethanol mixed with toxic essential oils. Some pharmacists added copper acetate to get the color correct, others added antimony trichloride, some even substituted the ethanol with cheaper highly toxic methanol. ("Absinthe", Wilfred Niels Arnold, Scientific American, June 1989)
Edgar Degas drank absinthe, so did Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and actress Ellen Andrée and Édouard Manet and playwright Alfred Jarry and most other artists of the time; it was their Green Fairy (in the sense of a muse or inspiration). It is argued that legitimate absinthe drinkers were never harmed, that the liqueur heightened their creativity.
The liqueur, or a copycat tonic, went tragically wrong for many others. Vincent van Gogh descended into his own personal hell. It is said he cut off his ear and presented it to a prostitute after an absinthe binge. He ate paint and turpentine possibly to allay his craving for the toxic thujone. Eventually he killed himself. ("Vincent van Gogh and the thujone connection" W.N. Arnold, JAMA, November 25, 1988)
Jean-Jacques LeLez has a great close-up photograph of the flowers of absinthe wormwood, Artemisia absinthe. To view the photograph, click on the link:
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jean-jacques.lelez/fleurs/absinthe.htm
killerPlants Tendrils: ~~1~~2~~3~~4~~5~~
Suggested Reading:
How was wormwood used? Herbal Folklore - November 3, 2003
Why did Artemisia build the Mausoleum? What's in a Name? - October 31, 2003
What is a toddy? What's in a Name? - January 2, 2004
What was the Vinegar of Four Thieves? What's in a Name? - July 18, 2003
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