BiG TeA PaRtY Sustainable Living

Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Article and photos by Elizabeth Fiend 10/12/6

There was a war you see in a far away place that had a strange religion called Islam and a lot of our boys were getting killed, and maimed, and messed up in the head and the war dragged on a lot longer then we
expected until we didn’t really remember why we were over there and things started looking real down at home, then a farmer shoots his whole family, shoots ‘em dead with his army issued rifle and the Feds and lobbyists want to spin, spin it so they can keep all their money and their failings as policy makers aren’t called into count.

And so goes the story of Absinthe.

Yeah, well that war was the one where the French colonized Algeria. The one where soldiers were issued Absinthe as a fever prevention. The mess at home was a plague, grape phylloxera, which destroyed two-thirds of the vineyards on the continent of Europe. The rich bought all the wine, bought it right up, screw the middle class, there’s no wine left for them.

A call is raised “support the troops support the troops” and since there was no wine left, the bourgeoisie took whole heartedly to drinking this intoxicating, green beverage that all the soldiers love, Absinthe.

Around that moment in time, the word alcoholism is first coined. Yep, the cure for alcoholism was a stay at the insane asylum and a treatment of wine. Wine, beautiful wine, a source of national pride. Doctors felt 1 liter of wine a day was a healthy amount for a hard-working man to drink each day. How much more for the insane?

As Absinthe’s popularity grew, so did public hysteria over it. It had a lovely, very social aspect to its buzz which was first attributed to the flavoring herb anise. Later it was credited to the psychoactive ingredient in wormwood, thujone. Thujone creates what’s called a lucid-drunk effect, combined with booze it’s kinda like doing some coke and then drinking a shot. Current science says thujone increases and randomizes the firing of neurons in your brain. This tends to make you a bit more imaginative, old things look new, everything looks crisp. Creative people just love that. This is a secondary effect. The primary effect of Absinthe was that people were getting wasted, wasted like never before. Why, because Absinthe’s a distilled spirit, it’s liquor, and the middle class was chugging it down like wine.

It wasn’t the thujone that made that Swiss farmer kill his family, it was the liquor. He had 2 glasses of Absinthe for breakfast, followed by 2 liters of wine and a bunch of brandy – only then did he take up that gun. But the government, wine lobbyists, rich and powerful cognac manufacturers and prohibitionists didn’t wan tto ruin their bottom line.

It’s the drug, the Green Fairy it’s all her fault that country, the whole continent is going to hell. Absinthe became the scapegoat, something to focus on, something to blame. I mean what would happen if the lower class started to imbibe? One could only imagine, chaos.

So why am I telling you this story? Because it’s a classic example of the way things work. 1.) Governments, they make laws based on all the wrong reasons. 2.) Rich people, they suck and will screw the lower classes whenever they can. 3.) And science, is, well, not a science it’s an art and lots of things it believes in and says are definitely true become not so true with time.

And why is Absinthe banned here in the U.S.? There’s no good reason. It’s just cuz The Man, he doesn’t want you to get high, he was being lobbied by religious fanatics and there’s a another war on the horizon, a big one, a world war (but we’re definitely not going to get in on this one.)

On July 25, 1912, the Department of Agriculture issued Food Inspection Decision 147, which banned Absinthe in America. Seven years later all alcohol was banned in the U.S. (Can you imagine if we lived then? Fuckers!) But you can still grow Artemesia absinthium, (which I do) and while it’s illegal to distill and sell beverages made of wormwood, it’s not illegal to infuse a beverage (which I do.)

Wormwood Fun Facts:

Why the name wormwood? The herb was used in medieval times “to remove worms from the guts.”

Edgar Allen Poe’s favorite pipe-full was wormwood. Yeah, you can smoke this sucker too!

To purchase Artemesia absinthium seeds (make sure you buy the correct seeds, read your Latin carefully.) These seeds are freaky. They like to do it with the lights on — that is to germinate, they need light.

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