Absinthe, a Mythical Spirit. Sung by great poets, portrayed by the most illustrious of painters, appreciated by all, and finally outlawed in France in 1915, absinthe today is experiencing a rebirth. The Green Fairy has not cast her last spell!. Adored then banished, accused of driving men mad, absinthe today without its most harmful ingredients, no longer presents the neurotoxic dangers of its 19 th century version.

Originating in Swtizerland in the canton of Neuchâtel in 1798, the result of an old woman's interest in mixing the plants she found on the mountainside, absinthe was brought to France in 1805 by Pernod and became the popular beverage among the bourgeoisie and the artists. It was the fashionable drink, more expensive than wine until about 1860, when the working classes began to acquire a taste for it. More common, cheaper and often falsified, the Green Fairy became the Wicked Fairy, blamed for all the ills of humanity. Outlawed, absinthe was abandoned by history for a century before new generations began to take interest in it once again.