The Creation Of Absinthe In 19th Century France

In 1844 the French were at war with Algeria, the troops stationed there used absinthe as a deterrent of bacteria; when the troops came home in 1847 they still had a penchant for absinthe. Mixed with some sugar-water to make it sweeter, the French populace began imbibing themselves with absinthe, starting the rise in absinthe popularity. A pest pandemic plagued Europe and all of France for 25 years beginning in 1870, aphids by the name ‘Grape Phylloxera’ destroyed hundreds of grapevines, this made the price of wine rise exponentially thus making wine inaccessible to the working class. Workers then turned to absinthe as the go-to drink. Absinthe became so popular that there was a special time of day to drink it, called ‘The Green Hour’ or in French ‘l’heure vert’ at 5 o’ clock. …show more content…
Famous painters such as
Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Edger Degas, Edouard Manet, Pablo Picasso, and many others drank absinthe and painted artworks about the green liqueur. Not only did the middle class drink absinthe, but the people of high society drank absinthe as well – men and women alike. “In 1874 alone, France consumed 700,000 liters of absinthe, but by 1910, this figure had exploded to 36,000,000 liters of absinthe per year. That sounds like a whole lot, but it actually accounted for only 3% of the total French alcohol consumption, whilst wine had 72% of the total. The French drank a lot!” (Absinthe.se) Eventually, absinthe made its way to North
America in 1837, but didn’t gain traction until 1874 when an entire bar was made for absinthe called the Old Absinthe House in New