Absinthe: the return of the green fairy
Absinthe is back in fashion – not only in Switzerland but around the world. We went to the Val-de-Travers, where it all began, to discover the secrets of controversial drink experiencing a second golden age.
The green fairy is dead. She’s lying on the ground with a dagger in her heart. Standing beside her, a cleric indicates the time of the killing: midnight, October 7, 1910. The label of the absinthe bottle “La Belle Époque” sums up, in a few square centimetres, the fate of a distillate that ended up in the book of cursed drinks, condemned by collective hysteria and moralism of the day.
We’re in Couvet, in the heart of the Val-de-Travers, a valley between Neuchâtel and Pontarlier, France, and the historical cradle of absinthe. Philippe Martin welcomes us to his distillery, La Valote MartinExternal link.
“On March 1, 2025, exactly 20 years after the ban was lifted, I inaugurated my new distillery, perpetuating the family tradition,” he says. “This building was once a riding stable and housed the horses of the Pernod family.” Pernod – a name synonymous throughout the world with pastis, the French aniseed aperitif derived from absinthe, after the latter was banned.
From a remote valley to the world
The year is 1797. Daniel-Henri Dubied, together with his son Marcelin and son-in-law Henri-Louis Pernod, founded a distillery in Couvet, starting the large-scale production of absinthe. The success was such that, just eight years later, Pernod decided to strike out on his own and open a factory in Pontarlier, just over the border, laying the foundations of an empire.
“They were businessmen before the term even existed,” says Raphael Gasser, director of the Môtier Absinthe HouseExternal link. “At the end of the 19th century the Pernod company in Pontarlier had almost 300 employees and produced around 10,000 litres of absinthe a day.”
Henri-Louis Pernod sold the distillate to the French army, presenting it as a medicine against stomach ailments and malaria, but also as a drink capable of instilling courage. “After fighting in Algeria or Vietnam, soldiers soon became colonists,” Gasser explains. “At this point, absinthe is drunk all over the world.”
A temporary exhibition in the Absinthe House recalls the story of a bottle that was carried in the hold of a ship and in 1871 ended up, with the ship, at the bottom of the ocean off Jakarta. Found 120 years later, that bottle recalls the golden age of the “green fairy”.
The cause of all ills?
Absinthe soon became the cult drink of painters, writers and bohemians. “At 11am and in the evening from 5pm onwards, the green hour was celebrated in Parisian cafés and bistros,” Gasser says. Among the devotees of the green-eyed muse were artists Van Gogh, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Baudelaire, Picasso and writers Oscar Wilde and Ernest Hemingway. But the growing success of absinthe was not without consequences, especially among the working class.
“Absinthe became the scapegoat in a period marked by profound social changes and political tensions,” Gasser points out. “A key role was also played by the wine crisis caused by phylloxera, a parasitic insect that devastated European vineyards between 1860 and 1880. Due to the shortage of wine, absinthe emerged as an alternative for workers seeking relief from gruelling factory shifts.”
Absinthe is also often called the “green fairy” or, in its region of origin, the “blue fairy”. According to the Swiss Culinary Heritage AssociationExternal link, this term was coined by Oscar Wilde. The Irish writer claimed to have seen fairies after drinking absinthe, which before the prohibition was generally green.
The nickname “la bleue” probably derives from the fact that when water is added, absinthe takes on a bluish hue.
In those years, the term “alcoholism” was not yet known, but there was talk of “absintheism”, a phenomenon that prompted public opinion to call for a ban on the green drink, accused of being the cause of episodes of madness and domestic violence.
In Switzerland, following a crime, a moralising campaign by the church, winegrowers and brewers led to a popular vote in 1908. Some 63.5% of the electorate approved the ban on distilling absinthe, which came into force in 1910. Belgium had already adopted such a measure in 1906, while France did so in 1915.
Among the reasons for the prohibition of absinthe was the presence of thujone, a molecule contained in the Artemisia absinthium plant, common wormwood.
If taken in large doses, this molecule can have devastating effects on the nervous system. At the time of the ban, however, neither the actual dangerous doses nor the actual concentrations present in wormwood were known.
Various studies conducted in recent decades have concluded that the amount of thujone contained in absinthe is so low that one would have to drink several litres a day to reach levels harmful to the nervous system. Swiss legislation, however, limits the thujone content to a maximum of 35mg/l.
More than the presence of thujone, what made the consumption of absinthe particularly harmful before the ban was its alcohol content. In fact, the drink was often distilled to over 70°.
Secret recipe
“In the Val-de-Travers, absinthe continued to be produced illegally. There were over a hundred clandestine distilleries,” says Philippe Martin. “My father used an old pressure cooker, converted into a still, which was placed in the bathtub to cool it down.”
At the time, Philippe was six years old and was not supposed to reveal that secret to anyone: his father risked prison. “When the ban was lifted in 2005, my dad almost regretted it,” he says. “With legality, you lost the spirit of rebellion and the aura of mystery.”
In 2014, Philippe Martin took over the family business, handed down through generations, along with the secret recipe, and became a professional distiller. To the water and the regional alcohol – obtained from sugar beets, processed in the sugar factory in Aarberg in neighbouring canton Bern – he adds ten herbs, in precise quantities. These include the key herbs: wormwood, fennel, green anise, hyssop and lemon balm.
“Over the years, I’ve perfected the original recipes and developed new ones,” Martin explains. “I produce 8,000 litres of absinthe annually, which I sell mainly in Switzerland, but I also have buyers in Italy, Germany and France.”
Back in fashion
There are about 40 distillers in Switzerland, about 30 in the Val-de-Travers alone, ten of whom do it for a living. Total annual production of absinthe is estimated at 130,000-140,000 litres.
“Contrary to popular belief, France has not lost its historical leadership, but the Czech Republic has managed to establish itself as a major commercial player,” says Raphael Gasser, who believes that this once-cursed drink will experience a second golden age.
This is also confirmed by an article in The Times newspaper in Britain in January. “Today, this drink is inspiring a new generation of consumers and is making a comeback, gaining more and more popularity in London’s bars,” the paper writes. “Bars and distilleries are reporting annual sales growth of between 40% and 50%.”
“More and more young people are craving quality local spirits,” Philippe Martin also notes. “The distillation process makes it possible to obtain a very pure drink. What’s more, absinthe is shrouded in mystery, the spirit of rebellion, rituality.” These are all elements that have the power to revive the legend.
And so, from Couvet, from the Val-de-TraversExternal link, absinthe is slowly making a comeback in Switzerland and around the world. It’s now up to Philippe Martin, of the La Valote Martin distillery, to create a new label, a reminder of how the green fairy has become immortal, surviving those who, more than a century ago, had wished her dead.
According to a recent study conducted by the Botanical Garden of Neuchâtel, in collaboration with the Haute-School of Viticulture and Oenology in Changins, Artemisia absinthium – the plant behind absinthe – does not grow wild on a large scale in the Jurassic Arc.
The hypothesis is that the plant arrived in Switzerland with the Romans, who already knew of its medicinal properties and made a wine from it flavoured with aniseed, fennel and wormwood; the same ingredients as the modern “green fairy”.
Today, in the Jura valley, some farmers have resumed the cultivation of traditional plants, including wormwood, but also lemon balm, hyssop and mint, where they grew at the beginning of the 20th century.
For years, absinthe production in the Val-de-Travers has been at the centre of a dispute between distillers concerning the granting of the Protected Geographical Indication (PGI). After a decision by the Federal Administrative Court, the application was again submitted to the Federal Office for Agriculture, which is responsible for the register of PDO and PGI designations.
Edited by Samuel Jaberg. Adapted from Italian by Thomas Stephens
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