The Return Of The Green Fairy

Banned for over a century in its Alpine heartland until recently, absinthe is back with a bang — a small band of Swiss and French distilleries are driving a renaissance for this much misunderstood, herb-infused spirit

- Carolyn Boynd

I can’t help but think my surroundings are a little incongruous. The sun-dappled forest floor is thick with beech leaves. I’m standing at Fontaine à Louis, a spring-fed woodland fountain in the region where the drink originated, the Swiss Jura, and Yann Klauser, head of the local absinthe museum, Maison de l’Absinthe, is adding water from the spring to his own shot. It was at tree-shrouded springs like this, he tells me, that absinthe was covertly sipped during the century-long ban.

I almost expect the police to jump out and arrest us for illicit drinking, but thankfully, as of 2008 in Switzerland (2011 in France) this is all above board. Nevertheless, absinthe is still a drink that strikes fear into the heart of many a spirit lover. During the heady days of La Belle Epoque, La Fée Verte (‘The Green Fairy’) acquired a reputation as the mindbending tipple of choice for Van Gogh, Zola, Rimbaud, Toulouse-Lautrec and a host of other bohemian artists and writers active in Paris. And, while it’s never been banned in the UK, it’s always been something of a daring novelty — an edgy ingredient in cocktails like the Sazerac and Corpse Reviver No 2, or a noxious, flaming shot knocked back by fearless stag-do hellraisers.

However, this trip, to absinthe’s heartland on the French-Swiss border, has convinced me that absinthe’s notoriety is undeserved. It’s here you find the good stuff: a refreshing spirit distilled with up to 10 botanicals — including aniseed, mint and melissa — to disguise the bitter taste of key ingredient wormwood (‘absinthe’ in French).