It’s the stuff of writers, poets, artists, and madmen . . . all of whom are, arguably, the same thing. There are few drinks that have the mystery, allure, and controversy of absinthe. Simultaneously touted as the hallmark of high society and the downfall of the same, absinthe has had an unparalleled reputation (even though we now know it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be).
10 Jean Lanfray And The Absinthe Murders
If absinthe is associated with anything, it’s the questionable allure of its supposed hallucinogenic properties, its appeal to a certain bohemian crowd, and its potential for addiction and destruction. That’s the story that’s gone along with the drink for decades, and it all got its real momentum with some incredibly unfortunate events in a very unlikely place.
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Commugny is a rural town in Switzerland. It’s a fascinating little town with a history that dates back to Julius Caesar and Roman occupation. It has historic homes and villas, and it’s also known as the site of a terrible, terrible murder that helped cement the hatred and suspicion of absinthe.
In 1905, absinthe was riding a wave pf popularity among the masses in spite of a lot of hype that was already in full swing. The continued popularity was in part because of its properties, but also because of its rather affordable price. Until, that is, a peasant named Jean Lanfray drank a little too much—not only of absinthe, but of his usual daily allotment of wine and at least three other types of alcohol. He returned home after his binge, got into an argument with his pregnant wife, and killed her along with their two children.
He then shot himself in the head, and when police made it to the scene, they found that he had not only survived, but was conscious.
The day—August 28—was a turning point in the world’s view of alcohol in general and absinthe in particular. It had long been suspected that there was something dangerous about the green liquid, and with the help of journalists who started calling the crime the “Absinthe Murders,” absinthe was completely condemned. It was banned in Switzerland in 1910, and the United States and France soon followed suit.
Ultimately, Lanfray succeeded in his bid to commit suicide: He hanged himself in jail three days after his trial ended.
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9 Manet And Degas Cause Scandal
Well before the Lanfray murders, absinthe was already something of the drink of bohemian rebels, and when artists Manet and Degas featured absinthe in their works, the reaction was nothing less than outrage.
L’Absinthe is one of Degas’s most popular paintings. Even if you’re not an art history major, you probably know which one it is. It shows a woman staring vacantly over her glass of absinthe, a look of overwhelming depression written clearly on her face. When the painting debuted, it was called repulsive, a portrait of degraded souls capable only of vice. The Westminster Gazette went as far as to publish a review saying “Fine painting it may be, but ‘fine art’ is a very different thing.”
Manet got a similar reaction to his The Absinthe Drinker. His first major work, he used an alcoholic rag-picker as his model for a piece that didn’t exactly cause the major social splash he’d been hoping for. When he submitted the piece to the French Salon, it was wholeheartedly rejected, and he was faced with the same criticisms that his friends and mentor had given him. He was derided for his choice of subject matter, so much so that when his mentor,
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Thomas Couture, viewed it, his comments weren’t about the technique or the quality of the piece, but to express his absolute horror that Manet seemed to have “lost [his] moral faculty” to use a subject like the Parisian absinthe drinker.
The presence of absinthe themes—whether just the depiction of bottles or the actual drinkers—had a bizarre snowball effect that made people look at what was acceptable for fine art and what wasn’t, no matter how well the painting itself was done.
8 A Pirate, A President And An Absinthe Bar
If there’s any place in America that seems a fitting home to absinthe, it’s New Orleans. Throughout the 1800s, the Old Absinthe House was the place to go, famous for their absinthe-and-sugar-water cocktail, called the absinthe frappe (or, alternately, the green monster). And it’s the reason the British lost the Battle of New Orleans.
On January 8, 1815, British troops marched on the city. They were ultimately thwarted by an unlikely pair—general and future president Andrew Jackson and the privateer Jean Lafitte. The legend goes that the talks which ultimately cemented the partnership and led to the American victory were held in a secret meeting room in the Old Absinthe House. Lafitte, sometimes called a privateer and sometimes called a pirate, had the ships but no men, while Jackson had men but few ships. In exchange for a full pardon for Lafitte and all his men, the pirate agreed to let the general man his ships with soldiers. It wasn’t long before the British troops fell.
Because everything that involves absinthe has to come with some kind of controversy, in 1951, the nearby Maspero’s Exchange filed a lawsuit against the Old Absinthe House. They claimed that they were, in fact, the actual meeting place for the exchange, and if anyone was going to be putting up a plaque, it was going to be them.
The district judge dismissed the case with an epic ruling. He stated, “Legend means nothing more than hearsay or a story handed down from the past.”
