Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder

When I was first in Switzerland I lived in a village far smaller than the one I lived in now. Although I was told the Swiss would be impossible to get to know, the first night my landlord invited me to join he and his girl friend. His English and my French were both limited, but we made do.

“Do you want red, white or blue?” he asked.

I wasn’t sure if he were talking about flag colors until I saw the area of red wine, white wine and a clear liquid. Being adventurous I chose blue. I watched him pour a small amount in a glass that resembled an ice cream soda glass and place a filigree spatula over it. On that he put a sugar cube and poured water over that. The liquid turned milky white, not blue. I sipped. Yuck. Mega licorice. I hate licorice, but I drank it.

Using my dictionary I asked what it was.

“Absinthe.”

I learned although it was illegal to make or transport and carried a heavy fine, it wasn’t illegal to drink. This vile concoction had been invented in the next town and had been a major source of income for the entire valley until it was made illegal in 1905. It had a number of names: blue fairy, green fairy, boversee tea, etc.

Likewise across the border in France it was also being produced and even led to the discovery of a hidden river. When a Pontalier absinthe distillery burned down several miles away a river that no one thought was connected to the river that flowed by the Pontalier distillery was milky and smelled of licorice.

France made it illegal in 1912.

I saw cultural differences when I looked at two posters. The Swiss had a scraggly tooth minister, his foot on the body of a dead blue fairy, a Bible in his hand pointing to a clock and a calendar showing the time and date that absinthe was made illegal. The French poster had the stone entrance of Pontalier (resembling a mini Arc d’Triomphe) with a funeral cortege, a bottle of absinthe on the highly ornate carved hearse, drawn by beautiful horses. Behind the dead bottle the blue fairy floated, her arms sheltering her eyes in mourning.

The drink of the Impressionists has now become legal again in both France and Switzerland.

I still hate the taste.