Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
and there's Chuck and Jerry's here as well, and it's
the Three Green Fairies coming to bring you madness and delirium. Possibly. Yeah,
(00:22):
on Stuff you Should Know. I wish I wish Jerry
would put like some sort of twinkle effect in there
after I say stuff you should Know too, just a
nod to the fairy thing. Yeah, yeah, well you know
she's listening. She is, and she's furiously scribbling notes in
my imagination, yes, only in your imagination. That's right. She's
(00:44):
really stirring me. So yeah, that's right. Man, smells nice.
Um So, Chuck, I mentioned Green Fairies because that is
a nickname for what we're talking about today, which is
absentthe we've gathered here today to talk about this thing
called absent dearly beloved, that's right. Uh, that's right. And
(01:06):
this was my pick in Olivia. I think this is
Olivia right, helped us that with this. I believe this
was a grabster pick, which Chuck, I'm glad you said that,
because this makes this week a grabster tri fedka is
it the grabster because it seems like one. I was
just talking recently on the show about how it's certain
topics fit certain writers, and this certainly fits Grabster. Not
(01:28):
that he's a big absent head, but oh, if he's anything,
he's a huge absence. But it just feels like an
ed thing. But for some reason, it was spaced like
Olivia spaces things. I'm almost positive that it was absent.
I'm I'm pretty sure that it was. I mean, it
was the Grabster. No, I'm sorry, so it was Olivia.
(01:50):
You're right. Wow, he comes off like a grabst article,
for sure. It does. At any rate. This idea came
to me not too long ago, because I don't I
didn't definitely didn't see the movie again. But I saw
that scene from the Johnny Depp Jack the Ripper movie
that I can't remember the name of from Hell from Hell,
(02:14):
where Johnny Depp is in the bathtub and he is
uh may be because of that trial is going on
or something I don't know, um, and he does his
absinthe ritual, which includes uh, supersizing his the effects by
do you remember what he does? Uh? I've not seen
that one. Okay, it's okay, you know, it's fine. I
(02:37):
remember hearing that it was just fine. Yeah, it was
good enough. But he does the and we'll talk a
little bit about the sort of ritual of how you
prepare absinthe. But one such ritual is to light sugar
on fire and let it drip through a slotted spoon
into the absinthe, which is not recommended for a number
of reasons obviously, uh not the which is alcohol and
(03:00):
fire mixing. Um. But what he does is he drops
uh laudan in. Is that what it is? I think?
So alcohol and opium mix together. Yeah, some sort of
opium from a dripper bottle, dropper bottle, and he drops
it on the sugar then lights that on fire. So oh,
that's a pretty hardcore. I guess that's the way they
(03:21):
did it back then. The other big movie moment that
I know of is in that bos Lerman uh Mulan
rouge where you and McGregor and John Leguizama and some
other pals all are all drinking absent and they see
the green ferry. Kylie Minogue, I forgot about that. Have
(03:43):
you seen the trailer for his Elvis movie coming out? No? Oh,
it looks so good. I can't wait. What a great
combination they all. I think the only one who could
do maybe a better Elvis bio pick is maybe David
Lynch and bos Lerman might have him, might have him
beaten fun It looks awesome, man and the guy they
got to do it just snails the body movements and
(04:05):
like all the way up to the Vegas Elvis just
stone cold? Was it? Peter stars Guard? Is that you
think should play him? No? Okay, no, he's on my
mind because I I, um, we're going to talk about
Wormwood in a second, and I was like, man, wasn't
that like a series on on Netflix? And sure enough
(04:28):
it was with directed by Errol Morris. Oh I remember that?
Was it called Wormwood? Yeah? It was about the MK
Ultra program that. Yeah, it was really good. But uh yeah,
So anyway, um, okay, I think we've covered everything movie
wise right well so far. Okay. So the reason that
(04:48):
I brought up Wormwood is because it is this main
ingredient and absence. If you make absence, which, by the way,
if if you're not if you don't know what we're
talking about, absent is a type of liquor or liqueur.
I guess it's a it's usually made from a neutral
grain spirit. If you really want to get kind of authentic,
you would make it from grapes um, distilled grapes um,
(05:10):
and then you you kind of process it like you
would if you were making gin. You take some botanicals,
distill it together, and then the resulting stuff that cools
down after after you evaporated is absentthe and to make
absinthe you have to have three main ingredients distilled with
(05:30):
the liquor um, fennel, annis and then wormwood. And wormwood
is the big tricky key to the whole thing that
has caused a lot of problems and misconceptions over the years.
That's right, a lot of myths there. Absinthe is obviously
known for its very bright green color before you have
(05:51):
gone through your ritual, because it kind of changes the
color a little bit, but that comes from reinfusing after
it's distilled, reinfusing it with more of those ingredients. You
don't have to do that. There is such thing as
clear or white absinthe. But you know, if you really
want to have the absent experience, it's got to be green. Yeah,
(06:12):
why isn't this absinthe green? Take it away? Gar song? Right,
that's right. Nice ref um. That was very postmodern of you.
Thank you so um that that that essential ingredient. Wormwood
has been known to humanity for thousands and thousands of years. Um.
(06:33):
The earliest reference written reference to it comes from the
Ebbers Papyrus, which um dates back to Oh I would
say something like about thirty five hundred years ago something
like that. It's possibly earlier than that. And that was
just the first written reference. So we already knew we
being humans, knew about wormwood long before that, and up
(06:55):
until the mid nineteenth century it was all is treated
as like basically a medicinal plant. That's right, Um, there
were you know, this is sort of one of the
heydays of medicinal plant use. And you know, all kinds
of supposed cures ills being cured, uh, including but not
(07:17):
limited to, if you have stomach pains, if you want
to get your mensies going h Uh. They say it
could be hypnotic. They say it could give you a
pick me up if you were tired. Um, what else? Uh,
if it's an if it wasn't something you didn't want
to drink before then, Knowing that wormwood was used as
(07:38):
an insect repellent and an antiseptic for cleaning up a
bacteria ridden mouth might do the trick right. And also
one of the long standing um uses for it has
been as an antihelmetic, which means that it's a d
wormer And apparently when you ingest wormwood, it actually stuns
the worms that are attached to your gut lining enough
(07:59):
that they let go and you poop them out the
other end um, and it really does work. The modern
modern investigations of wormwood have verified it is an effective
d werm er um, and it also is an appetite
stimulant too, So um as we'll see, it became an
appartif which you drink before you eat, and that makes
a lot of sense, the little wormwood in it. But
(08:20):
in German there's a little there's a little tiny facts
here there in this episode. It's one of those which
I love. But in German wormwood is called the ver moot,
and that might sound familiar. Vermouth is a fortified wine
that contains wormwood, among other things. Did you know that?
I did know that? Because I love vermouth, I do too,
(08:42):
I still didn't know what I also know that it's
Modern studies even show that it can aid digestion, which
gives credence to the old saying absinthe makes the farts
grow stronger. My goodness. So, first of all, I know
that that wasn't off the cuff. It's just not possible.
You want to hear something terrible, I've been I made
(09:04):
up that joke in my head years ago. Did you really?
And I've never had the opportunity to drop it. You're
you're in a chicken processing plant thinking that, and you're like,
I need to get a job where I'm really public
facing so I can share this one. Well, it's a
punch line. It's not a joke. I thought of that
punch line, and I've I've long tried to create a
(09:24):
joke that would just take hold and spread around the world. Uh,
but I just made a fun one. You just did
that just spread around the world like this boslerman Elvis
Biopick is about to let me ask you something though,
Have you ever had malart? Yes, which is it's just
such hipster ridiculousness, But yes I have, so, my lord,
(09:48):
for those of you listening, Uh, that pretty good descriptor.
I guess it's a liquor or a liqueur made from wormwood.
It is very popular, almost exclusively in Chicago. Uh and
Jepson's malard and it's you know, it is a kind
of a hipster thing, like you get a PBR's All
Boy and with the malard back at any hipster bar.
But that was something that uh at max Fun Con,
(10:11):
which is the podcast network Maximum Fun has this summer
retreat they do every year where John Hodgeman and I
do are pub tribute thing which is now ended. But uh,
traditionally John would do the benediction, pass around bottles of
malort and everyone would drink it. And that, my friend,
is a taste that will stay with you for hours. Yes, yeah,
(10:35):
because wormwood is a really really bitter tasting something. Um,
and it's actually so. Wormwood has a compound in it
called absinthe in, and absinthe itself is a Greek word
that means undrinkable. That's how it bitter it is. The
(10:56):
Polish apparently have a saying called bitter as wormwood, right,
and um, this stuff absentthe that gives wormwood it's bitter
taste is so bitter. Chuck that one ounce of absinthein,
if you could extract it from the wormwood and you
came up with just one ounce of it, if you
poured it into five hundred and twenty four gallons of water,
(11:18):
mixed it up, and then offered someone a cup of
that water, they would be able to detect the bitterness. Wow. Yeah,
I believe that wormwood oil. Um, well, we might as
well go ahead and get into this a little bit. Um.
Wormwood oil has a substance in it about of which
this is a substance called food jone. And since time
(11:40):
and memoriam, when people had absinthe, they used to talk
about the fact that you would have hallution, uh, hallucinations
and seizures. So this is one of the big myths
that we're gonna bust is that's really not true. Uh,
that food jone can cause seizures. And we know why.
It's a it's a gabba inhibitor, and it's going to
(12:00):
block the receptors that lead to these convulsions. But there's
and and they've even done tests of of pre nineteen
tin absence recipes and found it's about the same amount
as today. And I saw one article that said it's
basically about enough food jone that you would find from
sage in a box of stove top stuffing, which has
(12:23):
long been known to give you hallucinations and convulsions in
addition to being very delicious. Yeah, so there's just not
enough in there, like it does food jone does come
from wwood oil, and it does cause seizures. But there's
just apparently trace amounts and it's even restricted by law
how much you can have in it, right, right, And
it's the same thing is like, um, if you ate
(12:44):
a kilogram of salt, it would affect you physiologically in
some terrible ways, like you would just have to drink
so much of it. Um. And then also because worm
was so bitter that even like the staunchest wax bearded
hipster in the country could probably not drink enough wormwood
to uh to bring on a convulsion or hallucinations. Now,
(13:06):
so that's just a big myth. The fact that, I mean,
we'll get into the history of it, which is pretty interesting.
But you know, it was all basically because people were
getting blasted on alcohol, right, so the but but like
you said, since time immemorial people have said, like this
wormwood stuff, it'll make you trip. That was enough to
attract some um artists, bohemians, writers poets um around the
(13:31):
turn of the last century, particularly in Paris, to the
idea of absinthe. We're not quite there yet, but once
we get there, bear in mind all of this is
wrong and made up, and it makes all it makes
an entire basically the Impressionist art movement really cringe e
that they were all just self deluded in thinking that
(13:52):
this this stuff was like causing them to hallucinate and
maybe get a little mad, and all this stuff it was.
It's really just kind of uncomfortable to look back on now,
it really is. So Chuck, let's say we'd take a
break and then we'll come back and really kind of
dig into the history a little more. Let's get our
shovels out and get ready. Stuff you should know, lash
(14:29):
sh stuffy should know. Okay, Chuck. So I mentioned earlier that, um,
you know, wormwood was long considered a medicinal plant. And
there's a story that goes that a doctor named Pierre
Ordinaire who was hiding out from the French Revolution just
across the border in Switzerland, uh in a town called Kuvey, Switzerland,
(14:52):
in particular, um that Dr Ordinaire was um looking for
a way to make worm would palatable to create a
medicinal lick, sir, and that that is how he ended
up coming up with absente. That's right, that's how the
story goes. Like you said earlier, if you want the
real authentic kind, use grape spirits, because distilled grapes is
(15:16):
how it started. Now it's just sort of you know,
a base um like a you know, any sort of uh,
distilled vodka type bass like white lightning. Why am I
tripping over all that? I don't know. It's almost like
I didn't want to say it or something. I know,
you really don't like that white lightning, do you know?
(15:38):
But back in the day it was distilled grape spirit
and it did have the worm would because that's what
he was trying to make palatable, and he did. It
appears at a bunch of botanicals to make it taste better.
You know that star and niece was probably in it.
Liquorice I see. Olivia also mentioned the finnel and the
hyssop and parsley, coriander, kim a meal and spinach, which
(16:00):
is quite a mixture. M hmm. When you take a
little sip of absinthe and your friend would be like
you've got a little spinach in your teeth. That is
a really strange sounding mixture. Especially parsley would throw the
whole thing off. You've ever had like a Green's drink,
like fresh juice, the moment they put parsley in, it
(16:20):
turns immediately south. It's horrible. It's horrific. Plea, leave parsley
out of everything drinkable. Okay, yeah, never. We we go
through periods where we're gonna we juice alli at at
the house, but I know we've never added parsley because
you're sensible salary. It's like, okay, you're getting a little
close to messing this up. But then once you had
the parsley is awful. It's it's punishment from that point on.
(16:45):
So you want to leave the parsley out whether you're
making juice or absinthe Um, and you said one thing, Melissa, Um,
that's actually lemon ball. I saw as well, What did
I say, Melissa? That's another term for lemon ball. And
I'm just saying, like, it's not like you were incorrect
in saying Melissa did say Melissa? I thought you said
(17:05):
Melissa in there as well. Sorry it comes up later then, Okay,
he said, did I say, Melissa, am I driving you mad?
Like the green ferry? About one of one of us
is on absinthe right now. So, um, that whole story
about Dr Ordinair coming up with this chuck is um
possibly wrong because at the end of the story, Dr
(17:26):
Ordinair turns out to be this kind, benevolent man who
leaves his recipe for absinthe um to the Henryoade's sisters
who were his housekeepers, and they go on and start
making this stuff um and sell it to a guy
named Major Enri Danielle do bed Do bid um and
(17:47):
probably make a tidy sum from that. But some historians
have said no, actually, it looks like other people might
have been making this stuff before him, including the henryode sisters,
so it's possible that Dr Ordinair actually stole this from them. Yeah.
And it was also a time where there was you know,
this was the golden age of medicinal elixirs, so who knows,
(18:12):
like everyone was experimenting with different recipes for stuff. And
I definitely think we can't say for sure that it
was Dr Pierre Ordinaire, but it is a great name. Um.
But at some somehow Dr major Dubia did come into
this recipe and started making absinthe, and he had a
daughter named Emily spelled like your wife's name. Yeah, And
(18:36):
Emily married another man, Henri Louis Peria Nude and Peria
Nude Para Nude. Sorry I was adding an extra syllable
in the Para nude. Um was the son of another
family that had been making absinthe, And so the Dubids
and the Para Nudes got together and became basically like
(18:58):
an absentthe making dying is the along the Swiss French border.
That's right. And what was the last name in that
other family, Well, Para Nude finally changed their name to
Pernode p r an o D, which is a very
famous brand of liquorice flavored liqueur that was once absinthe
(19:19):
that had the wormwood removed and became that's right, and
they're now a I believe there was a merger in
the mid seventies with another beverage brand and now they're
a huge sort of liquor company that owns I think
they owned Sea Grims, They own a couple of other vodkas.
They owned lots of stuff and you can see that
(19:40):
green pernol on any liquor store shelf, and you've probably
if you're not an aficionado, you've probably always wondered, is
that absinthe? Or what the heck is up with that
bright green stuff. Well, as we'll see, it was a
stand in for absinthe, which had become kind of popular
taste wise. Um, after it got banging. That's right, since absence, man,
(20:05):
you're full of it today, you're just full of like it,
he splits in vinegar. I've never heard that term. I
just made it up. Okay, So, uh, we're still not
at this point where absinthe has become an actual popular
drink really honestly. So Dubi Ed was like, I want
to buy this, but I think you're wasting it selling
it as a medicinal. I think people would actually like
(20:26):
to drink this, And he was right. But it wasn't
until it was used extensively as a medicinal with the
French army who were sent off to North Africa by
Napoleon in the eighteen forties, I believe, and we're given
absinthe during their stay to fight off malaria. Um. The
absence became popular because those French soldiers came back and said, hey,
(20:47):
have you guys tried the absence stuff? Like they gave
it to his medicine. But we loved drinking it regardless,
And the French Army was popular enough of the time
that whatever was fashionable with them became fashionable with the
rest of France as well. That's right, So they bring
the taste of absinthe back. At first, it is expensive,
(21:07):
and it is you know, basically people with money, sort
of the higher class that are drinking absinthe. And then
even early on, because of its reputation as a hallucinogen,
artists were into it, trying to get inspiration for their
poems and paintings and things like that. And things change though,
starting in about the eighteen seventies when there was a insect,
(21:30):
the Philo Rexerra, the rexa mhm by Losera. There we're
adding letters all over the place today. Uh so it's
the insect five loserra. It really in you know, France,
as everyone knows, is most famous for its wine growing,
and this devastated grapes in France and that was a
(21:52):
bad thing for the wine industry because that just meant obviously,
when something like that happens, wine is going to be
more expensive, and so absinthe came along and said, hey,
we can make this with anything. We don't need grapes,
we can make it with cheaper stuff, and all of
a sudden, absinthe is cheaper, and all of a sudden
that people drinking absinthe became just sort of the working
(22:14):
class because wine was so expensive. All of a sudden, yeah,
because the French said, we got to drink something. So
they replaced their wine, which is now ridiculously expensive, which
with much, much, much cheaper absinthe. But the thing is,
Chuck is absinthe is a spirit. Wine is not a spirit.
So you know, wine definitely contains alcohol, and you can
make wine with more or less you know, alcoholic content.
(22:38):
But one of the things about absinthe is it's one
of the highest proof liquors on the market. I didn't
know it's. It frequently hits sixty to seventy up to
eight alcohol. So if you get a really um high
a b V or high proof absinthe and you are
(23:00):
yourself a glass of it, that is not alcohol. The
other is pure alcohol. So that's a really big switch.
That's a huge switch over from wine, drinking a couple
of glasses of wine and dinner, and drinking a couple
of glasses of absinthe at dinner. It's a big difference. Yeah,
I guess I should have asked, have you ever had absinthe,
(23:21):
like just real deal, straight up at some drink or
not in cocktail, but it's absinthe? Yes, yeah, you mean,
got me a little bottle of St. George absinthe. I
think they're out of San Francisco. Um yeah, yeah, they
make really good gin too, um uh and a little spoon,
a little slotted spoons. So I made this absinthe here
(23:41):
there a couple of times. It's fine, okay, home about Yeah,
all right, I've never had it. I meant to get
some and try this. I'm gonna try it after now
that I know the whole deal and how to do it.
But I can already tell that it's not going to
be like something I'm gonna drink a lot of. No.
I mean, it's tasty, you definitely want, and diluted with
water and sugar water in particular as we'll see. Um
(24:03):
and but it's neat that there's like a ritual to it.
It's fun to like kind of learn the ritual, make
the drink like that, you know, following these this kind
of ritualized, and then never do it again. Sure, and
then yeah, the problem is when you want like a
second one or something like that, it's like, oh, I
gotta go through this whole rigamarole again, you know. So
it's one of those things, you know. Uh, then you
(24:25):
just crack a beer when it is less beer. Yet
you don't drink beer anymore, do you? Oh? Yeah, sometimes,
Um yeah, I mean once in ace in a while.
It's not frequent or anything, but um uh last beer
I had it was probably a few months ago. But
they I don't drink it much anymore. I miss it.
If you want a beer and you have a beer,
(24:46):
it can be really satisfying under the right conditions, you know. Yeah.
And I think what I do with beer now is uh,
it used to just be beer, beer, beer, you know,
when you're younger or when I was younger. But now
I treat beer as like a treat that I have
every once in a while and I'll have one, maybe two,
(25:07):
and that's it. And that kind of think back, like, man,
how did I used to drink like a lot of this?
That's just a lot of liquid, yeah, a lot of bourbon, yeah,
a lot of like your pants falling down, I mean,
like a lot of weird stuff happens when you drink,
and a lot of beer. Yeah. So anyway back to
absinthe um, where are we? Okay, it is now the
(25:28):
working classes drinking it, they're loving it. And advertising what
we know is like modern advertising is just starting to
be a thing. And in France they went a few
different directions, kind of like with I mean, look at
any beer now and you can kind of say the
same thing. Some of it was patriotic, like they would
adorn it in the French the colors of the French flag, um.
(25:49):
Some of them were even called things like patriot uh.
And then they had the sexy ads with you know,
sexy ladies drinking absinthe uh. And so that's like any
you know, that could be a Budweiser poster. But the
thing that they don't do on a Budweiser poster is
they also advertise it as a hygiene product. Right because again,
(26:10):
remember this whole thing started off as a medicinal liquor
medicinal lick, sir, So they could still kind of lean
on that because it was close enough in the recent
past that people recognized it as such. You know, got
worms drink absinthe or got bad breaths drink absin imagine
(26:31):
switching it around in your mouths. Yeah, it's probably like
a mouthwatch, I guess a little bit. It's like um,
you know that old timey liquorice flavored toothpaste. I imagine
to be like that. Yeah. Probably. So we should also
point out this is mainly in Europe. It never really
took off in the United States around this time, except
(26:52):
and of course French inspired New Orleans. It was pretty
popular there. Yeah, But like you said, in Europe it
was very popular, especially among artists, in particular Bohemian artists.
And there was a real transition going on in the
late nineteenth century early twenty, very very early twentieth century
um the aughts, as you call them, UM, where art
(27:17):
was getting a little more rebellious, a little less stuffy um.
And the old guard did not really like this very much.
But the new Guards said they cared not um, and
one of the one of the things that they were
interested in was changing altering their perceptions. So they used opium.
They drank lots of booze. But there was this idea
(27:39):
that um, in particular absenthe could change your perceptions of
the world and life and yourself in ways that nothing
else could. Again because of this super hallucinatory wormwood, that
if you drank too much, it might drive you mad.
And so they adopted absence to kind of fuel this
transition to a much more rebellious um like type of
(28:02):
art or movement of art. Yeah, and I think, you know,
I didn't quite get with you Mentalier about looking back
on it, it is kind of gross and embarrassing because
they were just getting plowed on liquor, is what was happening.
And you know, they were writing poems about it, and
they were painting paintings, you know about absinthe. Then you know,
(28:23):
Manet had one called the Absinthe Drinker, and it was
a man. It was a portrait of a man named
Colordette who was just sort of a street drunk who
was dressed up a little fancy. And that was a
big scandal because you weren't supposed to paint portraits of
people like that. And van Go drank a lot of
abs And then Picasso had a sculpture called the Glass
(28:46):
of absinthe, and there were poems written about it in stories,
and it was just it was all it was all
fake when you look back, it was nothing but getting
plowed on liquor. Yes, exactly right. And um to give
an example of how it's just kind of uncomfortable, it
can make you. Bode laire um who I always think
of with um, what was that bomb vivant that John
(29:08):
Lovitts played on SNL kind of a dandy, the one
I'm an actor. Maybe I just remember him invoking bodel Oh, Bodelaire,
And this is who he was talking about was Charles Baudelaire,
who was a very influential poet of this time who
really liked getting wasted, and he in particular thought that
(29:30):
getting wasted on absinthe was amazing because quote, neither wine
nor opium equals the poison welling up in your eyes.
That show me my poor soul, reversed my dreams, thronged
drink at those green distorting pools absinthe, when really it
was just high proof licker. That was it. Everybody that
(29:50):
was it? Yeah, he could have been said, I've been
about hunch punch exactly. You know, like college Freshman wrote
similar poems inspired by Jim Morrison and hunch Punch. Oh yeah, exactly.
Hunch Punch really does get on top of you pretty
quick too. That never had that stuff. If it's well made,
you don't even taste the incredible amount of high high hy. Yeah,
(30:16):
it's crazy. You're like, how is this being hidden? But
it does, I guess because it's a neutral spirit. But
it's um wow, And for some reason it's all there's
always like an entire garbage can full of it. It's
never like a small amount. Nobody ever makes like a
nice cocktail of hunch punch. Here and there there's a
garbage can. It's a very dangerous thing to do. Actually,
(30:36):
in retrospect, I have a theory about absence, and I
haven't really seen anything about this, but I think the
mere fact that it was this bright, bright green just
I think if it would have been a clear or
brown liquor, it wouldn't have taken hold like it did.
I think there was something about that color that just
sort of entranced people. I think you're totally right, and
(30:57):
the point that shouldn't be mistaken is that in some way,
shape or form, absent, even if it was a mythological
concept when you really get right down to it did
fuel some really creative art at that time. I mean
we're talking about man A Dega van go All. These
guys were like fueled by absinthe. Like it really did
(31:19):
have a huge impression on the art world, even if
they were kind of self deluded. Yeah. The Oscar Wild quote,
of course, you know every Oscar Wild quote is pretty great.
But he liked the stuff, and he said, after the
first class of absinthe, you see things as you wish
they are, wish they were. After the second you see
them as they are not. Finally, you see things as
(31:40):
they really are, and that that is the most horrible
thing in the world, which just means you're plastered. Yeah. Um.
Another one that we could not just not shout out
though was pretty much the the head cheese as far
as getting super plowed on absinthe goes, which is to
loose la trek, Henrida, to loose la trek. He loved
(32:00):
the stuff, very famous with pastel portraits, very famous. Um,
just kind of hard living, hard drinking French dude from
the era um. And he apparently loved absence so much
that he had a walking cane that he carried a
little like a couple of shots of absente poured into
hollowed out walking cane with him everywhere he went. That's
(32:23):
a nice party trick. So it was, Um, it was
really something like everybody was really getting plowed on absence.
Remember a lot of working class French people replaced their
morning afternoon and evening glasses of wine with morning afternoon
and evening glasses of liquor absinthe instead, and this was
(32:44):
starting to like make a lot of people worried. Um,
there was a temperance movement in eighteen seventy two, beginning
in eighteen seventy two in France, and it was not
gaining traction, and then absinthe really started to come along
and a target began to emerge. And Chuck, I say
that we take a uh break and then come back
and talk about how the ban on absinthe began. Let's
(33:05):
do it. Stuff you should know, lawsham shure stuff you
(33:29):
should know, all right, So you teased that. Uh, the
temperance movement in France didn't take at first because simmas France,
I'm sorry, the French should love to drink lots of
wine and other things. God God bless him, but absinthe
is started to grow in popularity, and they rode in
(33:50):
and said, all right, here's our chance. This stuff is
is the devil's juice, and we can really have a
way in here if we target absent as a thing.
And then wine makers, which is sort of weird, got
involved in the temperance movement in a way when they said, yeah,
absentthe is terrible and it's not like cognac, which is
(34:12):
you know, it was just really sort of high falutin
alcohol made from uh, distilled grapes. Um. But this stuff
is really bad stuff. It's cheap and it's it's it's petty,
and it's for the lower class. So we're going to
join up in the temperance movement ourselves to help get
rid of it. Yeah, and it worked really really well.
I mean they had a common enemy, absence. And then
(34:33):
what was really kind of helped alonger helped the entire
thing along. We're a couple of things. One was a
psychiatrist named Valentine Magnart Magna in Magna And sorry, I
printed this undraft setting so I can't see very well. Um,
but even and we'll come back to magna and slash
(34:55):
magnart in a second. Um. But what what really kind
of shocked the nation's and in fact the world's conscience
about just letting absinthe flow freely was um jehan le
phrase murder of his entire family Um while he was
about as drunk as a human being can be, right,
(35:17):
but not so much on absinthe, which is the irony here.
This was in nineteen o five, and as the story
goes in court, they say he drank five liters of wine,
six classes of cognac to crim demense, just you know,
because a coffee with brandy, I guess to sober up,
(35:39):
and then but two ounces of absinthe, gets in a
fight with his wife, his pregnant wife murders her with
a gun and his two and three year old daughters
amazingly horrible domestic comicide case. Then tried to kill himself,
survived it and was basically spared the death penalty. But
(36:00):
because they said he was in the throes of absinthe
madness and it worked. Yeah, there was a psyche, a
different psychologist from Switzerland named Albert Albert Albert Mayhem, and
uh he said no, this man was was in the
grips of this absinthe madness, even though he just had
two ounces of absent throughout the whole day. But the
fact that he had had absinthe and absinthe had this reputation,
(36:22):
he was able to seize on it. And so that
that really caught the attention of everybody that if you
drank absinthe it could drive you to murder your own family.
That really made a lot of people reconsider it. And
then either um, like before this, well full thirty years
before this, there was a um a psychiatrists in France
(36:46):
named Magnan Valentine Magnan and he I guess was part
of the temperance movement as well. Um and he had
conducted some studies where he got his hands on wormwood
and just basically kept giving wormwood or two dogs until
they'd finally start having convulsions and seizures. And then he
published a study saying wormwood I will give you convulsions
(37:08):
and seizures. Doesn't really matter how much wormwood oil you drink.
Just the fact that wormwood oil was in absinthe made
it questionable, made it dangerous. And so these two things
Magnan's pretty much made up study and Jean Le phrase
horrific crime came together to give that strange bedfellow um
(37:29):
joint movement between the temperance people and the wine industry
a huge target on the back of absinthe. And they
went after absinthe full bore. And it did not take
very long after Jean Le phrase crime for absence to
start to get banned around the world. Yeah, I mean
that had they made up a name for it, even
it's called absinthe is um instead of alcoholism. And I
(37:52):
think the murder was in He, by the way, appears
died by suicide just a few days after he was
put in jail. Just to put a button on that,
but that was in nineteen oh five. Switzerland bandit in
nineteen o eight. Uh, the US bandit in nineteen twelve.
France finally gave in in nineteen fifteen, and then that
is when in nineteen twenty we mentioned that Pernou started
(38:16):
making pernol a nie which is now just known as
perno as that substitute for absent in nineteen twenty. Right,
So there's a band and a lot of different countries,
not all countries. Apparently the UK never banned it, but
I read that it was partially because they were just
ignoring things that have to do with French tastes for real. Um.
(38:39):
The UH the checks never never banned it. So you
could go to Prague, which was also a center of
like artsy intellectual um Bohemian vibes. In fact, I think
Bohemia actually is in that area. UM, so they would
definitely have an original claim to that UM. But for
the most part, if you wanted to get absinthe, it
(39:00):
was very, very difficult, and because it could drive you mad,
it can make you kill your family. And you mentioned
it a second ago. Absinthe is um this UH syndrome,
which was the collection of maladies everything from m hallucination, sleeplessness, tremors, convulsions,
madness from drinking absinthe. And in retrospect historians say this
(39:23):
didn't exist. Like what this person was describing was excessive
alcohol use, like all this stuff you can get from
drinking way too much high proof alcohol, which is what
they were doing. So in addition to like just this
kind of moral panic about it making you kill your family,
there was an accompanying made up syndrome to to give
(39:44):
like a veneer of science to the moral panic as well,
and it was so effective Chuck that absinthe was banned
for over a hundred years in places. Yeah, I mean
it took the liquor industry and distilleries basically beating the
drum saying, you know, we want to make absent, we
want to make this probably highly marketable. Super hopped up
(40:05):
liquor again and they said all right. The EU started
lifting the band in the in the late eighties and
eight Uh. France, it was sort of in a gray
area basically, but they finally removed the law against it
in I believe the US was two thousand seven when
(40:26):
the a T the Alcohol, Tobacco, Tax and Trade Bureau
said all right, well, here's what you can do. You
can distill this liquor. You can call it absinthe, but
it can't it's gotta be through jone free. It's got
to have less than ten parts per million. And uh,
if it's coming across the border, if you're importing it,
(40:46):
you can't import something labeled absinthe or any bottle that
you know, shows like people tripping or any kind of
hallucinogenic effects on the bottle, right, which just underscores the
government's preoccupation with control link citizens perception of reality really
strange if you step back and think about it. You know, so, Um,
(41:07):
you can get absinthe here today. In Switzerland they have
one of those. Man, I can't remember what it's called,
but where you know, in Champagne there's rules about what
qualifies a champagne and anything that don't follow those h
something about appellation I can't remember, but um, Switzerland has
something like that. And Couvey is kind of I saw
it described as the spiritual home of absinthe. UM, so
(41:31):
you can get it. Uh. It's widely available today and
there's some really good craft distillers making absinthe all around
the world. And if you do get your hands on
it and you do say like I want to try this,
there is a pretty interesting ritual involved. Um and absinthe
is typically drunk, at least with water and sugar, and
(41:52):
the way that you combine those two things with absinthe
is kind of where the rituals start to kick in.
That's right. Uh. And firstly, you should look for abs
sinth that is not made green with some artificial coloring.
You don't want that. You want something that's like genuinely
colored from the post distillation process of infusion. So once
(42:13):
you've got your hands on some good absinthe, uh, there's
different ways you can do it. There are cool little
things that look good on your bar. I've seen some.
They look sort of like these clear vases with a
a little spout on one side. But you don't even
need all that stuff. Really, you just all you really
have to do is poor and you don't even need sugar.
I think sugar helps the taste. But if you want
(42:35):
to uh, what is it pronounced the luch, that's what
I think, l o U c h E. If you
want to create the luch, which is this sort of
cloudy effect in your absinthe, all you really have to
do is dribble ice cold water in your absinthe. So
you know, you pour just a little bit. You don't
need much, like an ounce, maybe two ounces if you're
(42:56):
really going for it, and then you want to mix
about four parts ice cold water, just dribble it in
the little flat spoon on top. If you want to
get into the ritual, it can be a little fancier,
but I saw people online that literally just sort of
held a glass of ice cold water high above their
absent glass and just sort of dribble the water in. Yeah,
those drippers that are really cool. They look like a
(43:19):
virus almost like three or four legged virus that sits
atop your glass, and then there's a tray beneath it
that you put the sugar cuban and then you just
pour the four or five ounces of cold water into
the reservoir above the tray over the glass, and it
drips it onto the sugar at a steady rate, which
drips the sugar water into the glass of absinthe below. Um.
(43:40):
And they're very, very pretty for the most part, like
that bellop hoc Perry look um, and it's yeah, it's
really cool. It's like I could see how people get
into this kind of thing too. But that loose chuck.
There's a really cool legend about it. So the luci
is created when the water dissolve some parts of the
alcohol but not some of the oil based plant stuff,
(44:03):
and rather than just separating like oil and water, it
separates out enough to just kind of create this vapor cloud.
And there's a legend, I don't know if it's true
or not that at the Pernode Distillery Um there was
a lightning strike that threatened to blow up. I guess
created a fire that threatened to blow blow up thousands
of barrels of absinthe, So the workers were dumping it
(44:24):
out as fast as they could into the nearby river,
the Dubes River, and um, there was a local theory
that the Dubes River fed another river through an underground channel,
and when the other river showed a lush a couple
of days later, that confirmed that theory, which is pretty
neat although not necessarily a fully documented story. It's a
(44:44):
good story though. Yeah, and the lucio is cool looking,
like admittedly it's you know what you start out if
you've never seen it, what you start out with with
absinthe is uh, sort of a see through green, very
bright green thing. And the lush, once it gets cloudy,
it ends up looking kind of almost like, uh, lime juice,
sort of a cloudy lime juicy look. And again it's
(45:07):
it's mostly water. Uh. And you know there is that
fire method where you light the sugar cuban fire uh
and then extinguish it with cold water after it drips
down and melts into the thing. But I saw that
a this was not a good idea for a lot
of reasons because the danger of fire. If you're in
a bright room, you might not see that light blue
(45:27):
flame and go to drink something that's still on fire. Uh,
and that it's really uh it's usually or historically was
a way to disguise like really bad absent. Then if
you have good absinthe then it's not something you need
to do at all. The best thing, in my opinion,
that you can do with your absence is use it
to rinse a glass that you're about to make a
sazarek in. Yeah, I've heard of that. Oh man, it's good.
(45:50):
A good sazarek is, Oh my gosh, I like a sazarek.
I'd never I don't think I saw. I've seen one
being made at like a bar. It has come to
me at the table. So I don't know if they've
done that or not. They most definitely have if they
if they're making anything approaching an accurate sas reck, I
guarantee they have for sure. Like you just put just
a little bit in, like a quarter ounce or less
(46:13):
of absence and then you turn the glass kind of
on its side and twisted around in a circle on
its axis. Yeah, I guess with yaw control. Maybe I'm
not sure, and um, now your your glass is ready
to have the sas rec poured in. Or if you
really want to get fancy, they sell little atomizers like
those perfume atomizers that you can put absinthe in and
(46:34):
just spray it on the inside of your glass and
it should stick to the sides. Yeah, that's when I
get a You know, I love my martinis, but I
like a martini with a little vermouth in there. Not much.
I like them dry, but I do like a little
actual vermouth in there. And uh, it annoys me when
asked for a dry martini when they just put their
vermouth in, swish it around, then dump it out. I'm
(46:57):
always like, come on, just just a little bit, put
it like a bone dry martini, or or they don't
even like the thought of vermouth isn't even an option.
It's just straight up gin. I'm like, Martini, it's supposed
to have a little vermouth in there. Yeah, you might
as well say, can I have three ounces of gin? Please?
Yea cold gin. That's basically what I have with a
(47:17):
little brine. Yeah, So you got anything else about absinthe?
Nothing else? There are plenty of cocktails out there that
have a little absent in there if you're into that.
But I'm gonna give it a try. I'm gonna see
what it's all about. Some have a lot of them.
I saw the Necromancer. It's equal parts um, absinthe, lilas blanc,
Saint Germain and lemon juice with a dash of gin.
(47:40):
Saint Germaine is green, right, No, it's a kind of
a goldish color. It's elder flower liqueur. Okay, it's not cream.
You're thinking of art truce. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking of,
which is another difficult thing to find recipes for. Actually, yeah,
I've got some of that stuff on my bar now
and it remains largely touched into digging. I think that's
(48:02):
another one that sorted out as a botanical medicinal remedy too. Yeah,
well that's it for botanical medicinal remedies. Everybody, in particular absinthe.
And if you want to know more about absent, then
just check it out. See what you think you should
be over twenty one though, you know, just c o A.
And since I said just c o A, it's time
for listener mail. Yeah, and don't do the fire method.
(48:26):
Just don't do it, agreed, No need. All right, this
is a Simpsons reference that we missed. I always love these,
and this is from Lauren, Andrew and Homer. Believe it
or not, Hey, guys, just listen to the wonderful episode
on postmodernism. So forgive me. This has already been pointed
out to you, but I couldn't believe that no one,
especially Josh, made any reference to the classic Simpsons episode
(48:48):
Homer the Mo in which Moe transforms the tavern into
a swanky club called m Right. Do you remember that one? Yeah,
there's a great scene where Homer and the other longtime
patrons are questioning Mo about some eyeball art on the wall,
and after some attempt to get the guys to understand
(49:08):
it is poem, he finally describes it as being we
had for the sake of weird and they all get it. Uh.
This definition has been what I think of when I
think of postmodern art for my entire adult life. So
I thought i'd share again from Lauren, Andrew and Homer.
Prince's actual name pretty great. Thank you for that. Thank
(49:30):
you for waking us over the coals from missing that one.
But is pretty obvious and we should have thought about it,
I didn't kind of king. Yeah, I guess so still
hurts so bad. But if you want to make us
hurt so bad, you can get in touch with us
like Lauren Homer and uh and Andrew and if you
want to make it hurt so good to get in
(49:51):
touch with John Mellencamp. It's my last joke that wasn't
a joke. You can send us an email to stuff
podcast at i heart radio dot com. Stuff you Should
Know is a production of I heart Radio. For more
podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
(50:14):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
H