“Step back into the belle époque and beckon the green fairy: absinthe is having a renaissance,” said Victoria Brzezinski in The Times. The heady spirit has been “reappearing in drinking dens” up and down the country.
Sales of absinthe worldwide are currently worth £29 billion and are forecast to rise to £32 billion by 2028, according to Business Research Company figures cited by the Express.
The renewed interest in the “mysterious distillate” has sparked a recent slew of “exceptionally creative cocktails”, said Tom Sandham in The Telegraph. “But ask a bartender if absinthe is back and they’ll tell you it never went away.”
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From Oscar Wilde to Vincent Van Gogh, absinthe was the “spirit of choice” for many of “history’s most bohemian creatives”, due to its eye-watering alcohol content (ranging from 45% to as much as 74%) and “supposedly mind-altering effects”, said Alice Fisher in The Observer.
Made with wormwood, anise, fennel and a concoction of other potent herbs, absinthe originated in Switzerland in the 18th century as a “medicinal elixir”, said Ellie McDonald in The Times. It became so popular in belle-époque Paris that 5pm was dubbed the “green hour” in a nod to the spirit’s bright-green hue.
But, as its popularity grew among the bohemians of Paris, the spirit came to be “blamed for a range of social ills” and, by the 20th century, it had been outlawed in many countries around the world. Recent studies have revealed that the claims about absinthe’s madness-inducing properties were likely “exaggerated”. The ban was eventually lifted in France in 2011.
Today, a “new generation of drinkers” are fuelling its resurgence. Boasting the UK’s biggest collection of the spirit, the Absinthe Parlour in east London has become a haven for enthusiasts, with tastings and lectures, while music venues like the Black Heart in Camden and Blondies in Clapton are serving “frozen absinthe slushies”.
At Hotel Café Royal in Soho, the “moodily lit” Green Bar has launched an entire absinthe menu in an ode to Wilde who “once drank the stuff” behind the property’s “gilded doors”, said Harriet Kean in Tatler. Among the drinks-list highlights is the “tangerine-coloured” O.W Punch – an “intoxicating” mix of La Fée Parisienne absinthe, bergamot liqueur, white apricot tea, agave nectar, lime and cardamom butter.
Many of the top-drawer absinthes have an impressive “complexity of botanical flavours”, and even a dash can have a significant impact on the nuance and depth of your tipple of choice, said Sandham in The Telegraph. Drinks connoisseurs should “stock a bottle in your home bar, because without one, you’re missing out on some of the best cocktails in history”.
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