PRECIOUS INSPIRATION TO OBLIVION

Absinthe: A curious writer wanders Prague in search of a taste of the
forbidden.

PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Human beings have invented or discovered an
abundance of substances that offer short-term pleasure, often in exchange
for long-term grief - things like alcohol, cocaine, heroin. Few such
products have yielded such a spate of griefs as absinthe, the drink favored
by bohemians a century ago in Paris and other cosmopolitan locales in
Europe and the United States.

Absinthe was dangerous: It drove men mad. Degas portrayed its stupefying
effect artfully in his painting "L'Absinthe." Picasso and Manet worked the
same theme. Some believed this drink, formulated in the 18th century by
Henri Louis Pernod, stimulated artistic creativity. Talky Oscar Wilde
prattled on about visions. Baudelaire drank it for inspiration. So did
Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin, van Gogh. Others regard tales of its
inspirational qualities as pish-posh.

Looking back, the pish-posh school of thought seems to hold more credit, if
only because of the millions upon millions of others who drank absinthe
during its heyday and went on to create absolutely nothing.

The French had been making and selling absinthe for nearly a century before
they banned it in 1915, by which time they were consuming 10 million
gallons a year. Other countries had moved more quickly: Belgium in 1905,
Switzerland in 1910. A little later the United States went along. This
followed years of observation by physicians of absinthe's longer-range
effects, including convulsions, hallucinations, insanity and other
reactions. Thus, its prohibition was understandable.

So, should one be apprehensive at the news that absinthe is back? It is.
They make it here in the Czech Republic. They started after the Communists
were thrown out.

After absinthe's prohibition, substitutes emerged: Pernod, anis, ouzo.
Newsweek reports that there's one on the market in the United States,
called Absente. All taste similar to absinthe but lack the stuff that made
the original so dangerous: thujone. Thujone, contained in wormwood
(artemisia), upon which the drink is based, was absinthe's sinister secret.

The current Czech product, according to Daniel Hill, a member of the family
that produces absinthe in the town of Jindrichuv Hradec, in southern
Bohemia, has a "negligible" amount of thujone. "It wouldn't be absinthe
without it," he says.

The best news, says diplomat Marcel Sauer at the Czech Embassy in
Washington, is this: "You don't go mad anymore."

Daniel Hill and his uncle, Vladimir Hill, operate out of Canada, where they
distribute Hill's Absinth-spelled without the final "e" - to any country
that will buy it. Those countries include Germany, Austria, Russia and
Great Britain.

Britain never did ban absinthe, maybe because it was never as popular there
as it was on the Continent. The British had their own substances to worry
about, such as laudanum, an opium derivative all the rage during Victorian
times. Absinthe is still legal, which may be why London has become the
locus of absinthe's revival. The stuff they're drinking these days in
fashionable SoHo's bars and clubs comes from Hill's distillery.

"We're trying to get approval for it in Canada," says Daniel Hill. "I think
there's a chance."

The Hills have very little expectation that absinthe will ever be sold in
the United States, where thujone is banned.

Absinthe has always had a certain appeal to it, even to nondrinkers.
Anything so hotly denounced by the righteous and correct, and so lavishly
praised by the creative if bent, has to pique the most dormant sense of
curiosity, especially among Americans. Disputes over dangerous substances
seem to be part of what we're all about.

Earlier in the century, addictions to opium-laced, over-the-counter
medicines were widespread. The prohibition of alcohol came and went to the
staccato of tommy guns. The wrestling over the use of marijuana for medical
purposes continues. Draconian state and federal drug laws obtain, and the
question of legalizing narcotics as a way of dealing with the social
problems they stimulate is hardly discussed. These fights never end; they
create an atmosphere hardly receptive to something like absinthe. Even
"safe" absinthe.

My curiosity about absinthe was stirred a little more deeply by the fact
that, having arrived in this country where it is made, I had trouble
finding it. My search was not systematic, but in each neighborhood visited
in Prague and elsewhere in the Czech Republic, if I saw a likely place, I
would inquire. Sometimes the people behind the counter would just shake
their heads, and offer a look that said, "Are you kidding?"

Eventually, in a shop near a tram stop just below Hradcany Castle, a woman
who looked as if she had been recklessly used by life nodded and produced a
bottle of liquid the color of some gasolines. Hill's Absinth. It cost 300
crowns, about $9. The same bottle in London is $70. The Hills aren't doing
badly, it seems.

The search for absinthe finished, it suddenly began appearing on every
side. A sign advertising it by the drink appeared at a cafe in the Mala
Strana, or "Little Quarter," along the Vlatava River. Another appeared on a
restaurant chalkboard in the Old Town Square. Was it there before? How
could one miss it? Mysterious absinthe: It hides in plain sight.

For several days the bottle remained untouched on the table in the hotel
room. It looked so pedestrian, such an ordinary thing to have such a
history, so many fey associations. It is, after all, just something to
drink. So what was one to do but to try it, a dash in a glass. Bottoms up!

My mouth caught fire. Then a bitterness came through, a bitterness beyond
measure, an unpromising bitterness, a taste from another world, utterly
ignorant of the sweet. After that unpleasantness the strong taste of anise
announced itself. It was a good, almost a rescuing, taste. But it lasted
only briefly, to be replaced by a treacly sensation, like sweet licorice.

The second dose was prepared the way absinthe aficionados take it (as I had
read), in a glass with cold water and sugar. This made the drink entirely
more palatable, even pleasant. A luminous green, sipping liqueur.

No visions arrived, not one hallucination. Nor did I experience a
compulsion to draw, paint or write poetry. I did begin to feel a little
elevated, which led to a conclusion about the possible reason for
absinthe's popularity so many years ago, and not only among the artsy, but
among low-paid European workers in the period before the Great War, the
street cleaners, chimney sweeps of Paris and Madrid, even New Orleans and
Greenwich Village.

First, absinthe is strong, really strong: about 140 proof. If you want a
fast ride to oblivion, an escape from the here and now, absinthe will do
it. Second, it was cheap back then, which was what drew so many poor
people, like artists, to it. People like Vincent van Gogh.

The famous Dutchman sans ear never made it as an artist while alive; he
sold maybe a single painting. Absinthe was probably all he could afford.
But it relieved the pain of his failure. It also gave the Dutchman enough
Dutch courage to put a bullet through his brain.