Ep. 159 Absinthe: How Bad Science and a Greedy Wine Industry Transformed the "Green Fairy" Into the "Green Demon"

Absinthe, a pale green drink consisting of mostly alcohol and small amounts of wormwood oil, has only recently been legalized in much of the western world after a nearly century long ban. Everyone knows the myths about absinthe - that it causes hallucinations, that it'll make you go crazy. They banned it for a reason after all right? It's powerful, dangerous stuff which, in many ways, makes it all the more alluring to the masses. But what if I told you that thujone, the psychoactive chemical found in wormwood, doesn't cause hallucinations at all? That the degeneration and "poisoning of the population" blamed entirely on absinthe at the turn of the 20th century was much likely to have been caused by the near 70% alcohol it contained? So why was absinthe really banned? Who turned the "green fairy" into the "green demon?" Let's fix that.

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Sources:

• Distillations Magazine "The Devil in a Little Green Bottle: A History of Absinthe"
• Healthline "Does Absinthe Really Make You Hallucinate?"
• Alandia "Absinthe History: From invention to ban and re-legalization"
• Food52 "The Folklore-Filled History of Absinthe"

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