Why is absinthe legal now

Absinthe producers insist they are carefully following original recipes and the drink is exactly the same - they even cite papers printed in scientific journals. Others argue that the few remaining pre-ban bottles will have degraded so much over time that they are now impossible to assess. There was no regulation of absinthe in the days of Van Gogh, meaning there was probably "significantly more thujone" than would be allowed under modern-day EU rules, according to Jad Adams.

Absinthe was first made, not in France, but just across the border in the Val-de-Travers region of Switzerland. And a Swiss judge recently approved a request to give the region exclusive rights to produce it. For the moment, this ruling applies only in Switzerland, which is not a member of the European Union - and so has limited impact.

But because of Switzerland's close ties with the EU, it is possible that the Swiss could seek to extend the ruling across the block. Producers say that this is what has galvanised the French government to lift the ban now. France would be the biggest loser if such a ruling were to be extended, but with the drink still technically illegal at home, it would have found it virtually impossible to contest. Absinthe drinker Clement Arnoux hopes that many more bars and shops will start to sell absinthe now.

Even though detractors say an absinthe without thujone is worthless, Lucid immediately sold out. Clearly, there's a market for a true legal absinthe -- but how does it taste? I sampled Lucid alongside a few of its competitors: Absente, which is made with southernwood rather than wormwood; Breaux's own Verte Suisse 65; and two Czech absinthes named Absinthium and Oliva. As prescribed, I trickled ice water into each one.

I omitted the customary sugar cube except where necessary. As the water mixed with each absinthe, the liquid clouded while its aroma blossomed and filled the room. Lucid is considerably drier and more herbal-tasting. He even gave a dog a vial of wormwood oil and watched it go crazy and bark at a brick wall for half an hour.

This experiment, by the way, is the root of the myth that absinthe causes hallucinations. These and other experiments seemed to confirm the widely-held belief of the day: Absinthe caused people to go crazy. It became common knowledge that wormwood had madness-inducing and psychoactive powers.

Then, in , a Swiss man named Jean Lanfray murdered his wife and two daughters in a drunken rage one night. The Lanfray trial put absinthe in the spotlight.

Combined with the evidence produced by Magnan, the crime was added to the narrative of the Temperance Movement also known as the Prohibition Movement which advocated a ban on absinthe. By the early s, the spirit was banned in most of Europe and the United States.

For these reasons, absinthe was banned in Switzerland in and the new law was penned into the Swiss constitution. Other countries followed, including the U. But as all things historical are also cyclical, and so absinthe made a comeback in Europe in the s.