10 things you didn't know about Absinthe: Number 8

Absinthe was banned in Switzerland in 1910 and in France in 1915. And what happened then? Well, there were three interesting developments.

1. Some of the French absinthe production shifted to Spain. Notably Pernod who first made absinthe in Couvet, Switzerland around 1797, then moved to France in 1805, and who then set up an absinthe distillery at Tarragona, Spain where they continued to produce absinthe until the 1960's.

(Picture taken by Luc Santiago of Vert d'Absinthe, Paris.
Luc quite often has bottles of this for sale)

2. 17 years after the French absinthe ban, Ricard began producing pastis in France.

While there are some major differences between absinthe and pastis, it does seem likely that pastis was intended to fill the gap left by the disappearance of absinthe in France.

And

3. The Swiss carried on making absinthe! Which, in this series, becomes:

NUMBER EIGHT:

WHEN ABSINTHE PRODUCTION WAS BANNED IN FRANCE AND SWITZERLAND, THE SWISS BYPASSED THE BAN, AND CARRIED ON PRODUCING "UNDERGROUND." THEY HAVE THUS MAINTAINED WHAT IS NOW ABOUT 220 YEARS OF CONTINUOUS PRODUCTION OF ABSINTHE.

The Swiss were not going to let a small thing like the law get in the way of their love of absinthe. While the big distilleries had to be closed down, that only meant that consumers had to find other ways to get hold of it. And thus absinthe quite literally became a cottage industry, produced at home by farmers and their wives, for themselves, their families and their close friends. It is suggested that they reverted to clear or "blanche" absinthes to fool the Customs officials that their bottles could contain schnapps or other colourless spirits, but I think the Customs officials knew what was going on and probably took their cut of the spoils. And so it continued from 1910 to 2005 when absinthe was finally re-legalised in Switzerland.

More details can be found here, and in the first video here.

For Part 9 of 10 things you didn't know about absinthe (The accident that led to full European re-legalisation of absinthe), click here.

For Part 10 of 10 things you didn't know about absinthe (The truth about the so-called Burning Ritual), click here.