Hallucinations and Lunacy

As the day drifts into evening time on a Friday, I do so like to partake of the Absinthe elixir, in the correct way of course. Pour freezing  water into a glass and balance a special, silver absinthe spoon across the glass and place a lump of sugar on it, you pour the absinthe over the sugar then light it, the flames burn the alcohol and melts the sugar into the glass, and voila....pure and nourishing Absinthe.....

Absinthe in fact originated in Switzerland but the artists and writers of bohemian culture in Paris took to this liquor and it is said to have lead to hallucinations which eventually ended in lunacy because of the way it was produced then.  This spirit is derived from the flowers and leaves of herbs to which green anise and fennel is added.  For this reason Absinthe is also known as ‘la fée verte’ which translates to the Green Fairy’. Artists and writers who drank Absinthe included Oscar Wilde, Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Toulouse Lautrec, Vincent Van Gogh, Aleister  Crowley  and Alfred Jarry.

Absinthe was thought of as a dangerously addictive psychoactive drug and it was banned in most of Europe and in the America’s. But Absinthe is now produced differently and it’s now a clean and a healthy alcohol, in fact I would say it is now good for you!