BRITONS SIP LIQUEUR OF POETS

Absinthe, once the poison of choice for bohemian Paris, was banned by
France and most other Western nations early in this century. But it's
the drink of the moment in Britain, which never got around to banning
it.

Green and slippery, bitter on the tongue and warm in the throat,
absinthe is the liqueur of inspiration - and maybe insanity, too. The
artist Vincent van Gogh is said to have cut off his ear under its
influence, and playwright Oscar Wilde rhapsodized that if you drink
enough of it, "you see things that you want to see, wonderful curious
things."

French insane asylums in the early 1900s were crowded with absinthe
addicts, who succumbed either to its 70-per-cent-alcohol content or
the supposedly hallucinogenic qualities of its unique ingredient, oil
of wormwood.

France and most other Western countries banned absinthe before World
War I, and few since then have given it much thought.

Until this month, that is, when absinthe suddenly went on sale at many
of London's top bars.

The liqueur's controversial reappearance, which has sent an illicit
sort of thrill through the upscale British drinking public, is due to
the ingenuity of four young rock'n'roll entrepreneurs who discovered
that Britain had somehow never got around to banning absinthe.

They looked up one of the world's oldest continuous absinthe makers, a
Czech firm headed by 81-year-old producer Radomil Hill, and on Dec. 9
began selling Hill's Absinth in Britain.

At about $7.25 U.S. a shot, or $68 a bottle when ordered over the
Internet (in Britain only, and it's not yet for sale in liquor
stores), absinthe is not for the faint-hearted or thin-walleted.

But it shows every indication of being a huge hit here. Bars can't
keep it in stock, and there's a new kind of drinking party in town:
young professionals gather after work to down several shots of the
pale blue-green liqueur, which is usually served after being ignited
with a spoon of flaming, absinthe-soaked sugar, then doused with water.

"It feels very different - the more you have it, the more you want
it," said manager Giovanni Burdi of Covent Garden's hip Detroit bar,
who tested abinsthe for himself by consuming an entire bottle in the
course of two days. "You can be addicted to it mentally," he concluded.

Absinthe's new appeal appears rooted in its romantic past. This was
once the poison of choice for bohemian Paris and New Orleans, and its
illustrious fans included not only van Gogh and Wilde but Paul
Gauguin, Pablo Picasso, Edgar Degas, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul
Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud.

Degas immortalized the liqueur in his famous painting L'Absinthe,
which shows a pair of dazed-looking drinkers in a French bar. A
similar expression is on the face of Edouard Manet's The Absinthe Drinker.

Sipping it slowly

Its less illustrious devotees included thousands of working-class
Frenchmen. According to an 1894 writer cited on the exhaustive
"Absinthe FAQ" Web site, France's workers frequently bought a shot of
absinthe during lunchtime for just a few centimes, then sipped it
slowly, feeling "their poor, tired backbones strengthen and their
brains grow clearer ... a touch of happiness."

The liqueur was first commercially produced in France in the late
1700s by Henri-Louis Pernod. He used aniseed, fennel, hyssop and
nutmeg, among other flavours, which were mixed with chopped wormwood -
a plant used in ancient times to cure worms. (Today, the unbanned
liqueur pernod, which contains no wormwood, is widely drunk as a faux
absinthe.)

By the early 1900s, with half of its asylum population reported to
have been made up of absinthe addicts, France was among many nations
to ban it. To this day, though, the reason for the French ban is
debated. Was it because absinthe threatened that nation's ability to
conscript young men for battle in World War I? Was it because its
popularity threatened French wine producers?

Were absinthe addicts suffering delirium and hallucinations because
they had simply drunk too much alcohol, or was it because of a
chemical in wormwood - thujone - related chemically to cannabis?

As absinthe hits Britain in time for New Year's parties, the questions
remain unanswered.

But the liqueur's few critics here, mainly anti-alcoholism
organizations, have steered away from debating absinthe's alleged
addictive, druglike qualities and instead complain that the last thing
modern Britain needs is another popular alcoholic drink - especially
one that is 140 proof.

"We aren't saying absinthe coming back will lead to people being
comatose in the streets," said Caroline Bradley of the British
organization Alcohol Concern. "But it's more a case of saying this is
a drink with this myth associated with it and that's its selling
point. That in a nutshell is the problem ... the fact we can sort of
get excited at the prospect of a drink with this reputation and say,
'Oh, I want to sample that.' "

It's also unfortunate, Bradley added, that absinthe is served like a
drug, with paraphernalia including a spoon and a flame. Absinthe
"crosses that line" between alcohol and drugs, Bradley said, "because
of its reputation and also the way it's drunk in a ritualistic way."

'It's Chatty and Fun'

But absinthe's new British importers, a partnership of four young men
called Green Bohemia, are not reluctant to promote either the ritual
or absinthe's selling point as "the spirit of freedom," as it says in
their press pack.

"I think people are enjoying it because it's a different experience of
pleasure," said Green Bohemia partner Tom Hodgkinson, co-founder of
the British rock music magazine Idler. "There's a whole generation not
taking drugs, not clubbing, and they still want to experience
something different. This fits quite well because it's not ravy, it's
chatty and fun."

Also, as Hodgkinson put it in an essay in the Guardian newspaper,
absinthe is about challenging Britain's wholesome do-gooder atmosphere
under Tony Blair's Labour government.

"For me," he wrote, "one of the principal attractions of absinthe is
that by drinking it, one is cocking a snook at New Labour's nanny
culture. This is a government that seems to enjoy banning things, but
we believe that adults are more than capable of looking after
themselves."

On a damp night at the trendy Alphabet bar on the fringe of London's
Soho section, shot after shot of absinthe was being consumed - out of
curiosity if nothing else.

"A surreal element of absinthe is all the journalists who are
approaching me," observed drinker Jonathan Wilkinson, a 29-year-old
molecular biologist who had been approached by two reporters doing
absinthe stories in just one week.

Downing several shots of absinthe with three friends, Wilkinson
admitted to feeling "vaguely cynical about its hallucinogenic
properties, because you can chop off your ear if you drink a vast
amount of alcohol, too. I'm on shot No. 3, but I have not achieved
Oscar Wilde's level of wit."

Checked-by: Patrick Henry