Absinthe Is Highly Toxic And Hallucinogenic - The Myth

["The Absinthe Drinker" by the Czech painter Viktor Oliva, 1861 - 1928. Picture Source]

Absinthe Is Highly Toxic And Hallucinogenic - The Myth

Absinthe, the famous green-coloured drink for last 100 years has gained a bad reputation of being highly toxic and hallucinogenic and even being blamed for causing the illness called "absinthe madness". Production was banned in most of Europe and United States since the beginning of 20th century. Only few years ago all these bans have been lifted (just in U.S. the ban existed until 2007) after throughout scientific peer-reviewed studies debunked many urban myths that haunted this beverage. Now it is having its revival.

[The Absinthe bottle. Picture Source]

This bitter tasting drink was very popular in European bohemian circles in the end of 19th century, where it was named "The Green Fairy". Many famous artists used to indulge themselves drinking it, such as Pablo Picasso, James Joyce, Charles Baudelaire, Ernest Hemingway, Arthur Rimbaud, Vincent van Gogh, Oscar Wilde, Aleister Crowley, Edgar Allan Poe and Lord Byron. The unique ritual of drinking was developed that included specially crafted glassware and utensils. The absinthe was poured into specifically designed glass, then cool water was poured into the glass through perforated spoon that included a sugar cube - this diluted the beverage and turned its colour into yellowish.

[Old absinthe spoons. Picture Source]

Scientific analysis of samples of century old absinthe, that have survived in old sealed bottles, found out that it did contain psychoactive ingredient called thujone but the amounts of it were in such small quantities that they were very unlikely to have any effect on the drinker - you would need to drink dozens of bottles of absinthe for thujone to have intoxicating effect. Thujone is found in wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) which was one of the herbs added during production of absinthe. Wormwood has been also added in to other popular alcoholic drinks such as Vermouth or Pelinkovac. The intoxicating effects blamed on absinthe were rather caused by alcoholism than thujone, as absinthe contains between 45 to 74% of ethanol (to compare, vodka contains between 37.5% to 40% of ethanol). Also, some 19th century low quality absinthe distillers tried to skip traditional method of colouring during production by adding artificial ingredients such as harmful copper salts, which could be the reason for its toxicity.

[Traditional, old ritual of serving absinthe. Picture Source]

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References:

"Absinthe", Wikipedia article.

"Thujone", Wikipedia article.

"Myth, reality and absinthe", absintheonline.com article, 2002.

"Does absinthe really cause hallucinations", howstuffworks.com article.

"a-Thujone (the active component of absinthe): ?-Aminobutyric acid type A receptor modulation and metabolic detoxification", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2000.

"Chemical Composition of Vintage Preban Absinthe with Special Reference to Thujone, Fenchone, Pinocamphone, Methanol, Copper, and Antimony Concentrations", Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2008.

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-logic

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