This is a preview of the content in our French Food Decoder app. Get the app to:
  • Read offline
  • Remove ads
  • Access all content
  • Use the in-app Map to find sites, and add custom locations (your hotel...)
  • Build a list of your own favourites
  • Search the contents with full-text search functionality
  • ... and more!
iOS App Store Google Play

absinthe

The ‘Green Fairy’

In a café or L’Absinthe.

Surely the most notorious spirit ever served in France, absinthe goes back centuries. Wormwood (armoise) was used as a medicinal tonic by the ancient Egyptians. The ancient Greeks recorded a drink called absinthites oinos (’absinthe wine’).

A French doctor named Pierre Ordinaire was the first to distil modern absinthe in Switzerland in 1792, macerating wormwood along with 14 other herbs, including hyssop and mint; it was soon commercially distilled by H.L. Pernod for its anti-parasitical properties and given to French soldiers fighting in Algeria in the 1840s to ward off malaria and dysentery.

Because of its green colour it became known as the Fée Verte, the ‘Green Fairy’. Aficionados would place a sugar cube on a specially slotted spoon, set it alight, pour the asbinthe over it, then mix it with ice cold water.

Read the full content in the app
iOS App Store Google Play

Drinks

Text © Dana Facaros

Images by Edgar Degas , Jeff Nelson from Canada, Kjn91