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France

Absinthe to go on sale in France again

Hallucination-prone artists and depressed poets can sup their favourite drink again in French bars after parliament this week legalised the use of the term absinthe for the sale of the notorious green alcoholic beverage. MPs voted to scrap a 1915 law banning the production for sale of absinthe after Swiss distillers tried to win European permission to be its sole producers.

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Absinthe was banned in France at the beginning of the last century, under pressure from temperance movements, rival drinks producers and officials anxious that distractions from the war effort be reduced.

The latest move in fact only changed what will appear on the labels of the products of about 15 distilleries which now sell a “drink flavoured with the absinthe plant”. This has been legal since 1999 even though the law banning the use of the name remained in force.

Established companies, such as Pernod Ricard and La Fée, already produce bottles labelled absinthe for export.

France was spurred to make the change by producers in the Swiss canton of Val-de-Travers who applied for European Union recognition of the drink as a regional product, a status similar to that granted to Parma ham and Roquefort cheese.

If the application, which is still being processed, is successful the Swiss will have trumped producers in the nearby French town of Pontarlier, which France claims is absinthe’s spiritual home.

Campaigners against absinthe claimed that it could blind drinkers or send them insane, due to thujone, a chemical by product of the wormwood herb used to flavour the drink. But distillers say that it is only present in minute quantities.

In 1988 the European Union limited the proportion of thujone to 35 milligrammes per litre of absinthe and fixed alcohol content between 45° and 72°.

EU producers insist that cheap versions made in eastern Europe bear no relation to the real thing.

Nicknamed la fée verte (the green fairy) in France, absinthe is credited with playing a major part in the creative process behind paintings such as Van Gogh’s The Starry Night and the verse of poets such as Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine et Arthur Rimbaud.

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