Many famous painters throughout history were known to be fond of alcohol — and it was no different with absinthe. Painters drank it, enjoyed it, and even committed it to the canvas. Below, in chronological order, are paintings of absinthe by some of history’s most famous painters:
The Absinthe Drinker by Édouard Manet. 1858.
The Absinthe Drinker by Edgar Degas. 1873.
Still Life with Absinthe by Vincent Van Gogh. 1887.
Monsieur Boileau at the Café by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. 1893.
Absinthe is such a ‘rare’ and ‘mysterious’ drink these days that it is hard to believe that during the Belle Époque period, lasting from about 1890 to the start of World War I, absinthe was France’s single most popular alcoholic drink — more popular than wine; served at every bar; advertised by numerous posters; imbibed by men and women alike. What happened??
The short answer is — absinthe’s popularity drew some very unwelcome attention. The wine industry became envious of absinthe’s success and waged a very effective propaganda campaign against absinthe. In addition, the prohibitionist movement, which sought to ban all alcohol, focused its efforts against absinthe, since absinthe was the most popular drink at the time. Together, these propaganda campaigns successfully changed public opinion about absinthe, linking the drink to debilitating and violent behavior as well as to insanity. What is more, that extremely negative perception endures to this very day.
The owner of Lucid Absinthe spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to get absinthe unbanned and millions bringing it to the U.S. market. It was anything but easy. Here is the story of how absinthe became legal again after nearly 100 years of being banned:
Some of the more surprising quotes:
“The 1912 ban [on absinthe] was never valid.”
“I could not find a single law on the books today that prevented absinthe from being imported or sold.”
“In the 1880s, the European wine industry was decimated by a parasite… absinthe took over the shelves… and the wine industry… created a very articulate and organized smear campaign against absinthe.”
“Ted Breaux… used his experience as a chemist to study absinthe and… through his own research… debunked the notion that [absinthe] could actually hurt you.”
“Not too many big companies had bothered to approach the government about [absinthe].”
“The amount of thujone in [our absinthe] is exactly what you would have found in a pre-ban absinthe.”
After being banned in the United States for 95 years, absinthe was made legal for purchase on March 5th, 2007. How did this supposed ‘evil drink’ ever become legal?
The truth, according to Mr Robert C. Lehrman of Lehrman Beverage Law, PLLC, is that absinthe has technically been legal since 1938 or even before then: “the 1912 Food Inspection Decision that originally banned absinthe was repealed in 1938 by the creation of the FDA and had not been enforceable even prior to 1938.” In other words, due to legal technicalities, the 1912 ban on absinthe has essentially been invalid for most of its 95 year lifespan.
However, this is a legal technicality and does not illuminate in any way why evil absinthe is now legal. After all, even if the 1912 ban was invalid due to legal reasons, doesn’t absinthe nevertheless make people hallucinate and go insane? Forget legal reasons — how did they get around the humanitarian reasons for keeping the ban in place?
The thing to recognize — and the thing which probably led the US government to ban absinthe in the first place — is that absinthe in its modern incarnation is not actually harmful, but its connotation most certainly is. To explain: over a century ago, a highly effective propaganda drive created the perception of absinthe as an ‘evil’ drink — really more of a ‘drug’ — that was responsible for societal ills.
In the 2000s, two different lawyers, Robert C. Lehrman and Jared Gurfein, separately spent several years prior to 2007 convincing the US government to allow absinthe, and surprisingly, according to Lehrman, the US government refused — but not because absinthe was harmful; rather, the government refused to allow absinthe because the negative connotation of the term itself had persisted and, if anything, was just as strong as it was a hundred years ago. In Lehrman’s words, “TTB [Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau] confirmed that the product was safe… but… TTB would not allow it to be labeled as ‘absinthe.’… TTB said it was an illegal drug term.”
In other words, the government did not care that absinthe was safe; it cared that people perceived it as extremely unsafe — indeed, as an “illegal drug.” To this day, absinthe carries with it numerous connotations that distort and exaggerate what it really is: a very strong and unique herbal spirit with an unusually rich history.
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