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“Absinthe: was it ambrosia or poison, artistic muse or ticket to madness and death? There is a tremendous fascination with absinthe, yet few truly know its rich history. The documentary ABSINTHE definitively brings the Green Fairy out of her clouded past where, for one hundred years, her fabled effects and demonized reputation have excited equal doses of admiration and loathing. The film traces absinthe’s arc: from its birth in Switzerland in 1787, through its rise in the chic cafés of Belle Époque Paris, to its prohibition, and its recent worldwide revival. Absinthe’s story is put in high relief through interviews with leading historians, authors, distillers, antiques collectors, and fanatics. The cult beverage of bohemian artists is back in fashion; the documentary ABSINTHE clarifies the legend.”
Watch online here and come join Lisa Derrick and friends over at FDL for the discussion, 8pm ET.
3 Comments
Read the wiki on it and was struck by the similarities to marijuana. Any substance which is seen as associated with a challenge to the existing order gets banned.
Something I found interesting in that Wiki entry: One line says that it is now common knowledge that Asbinthe didn’t cause hallucinations, even though for 200 years, its users thought that they were having hallucinations. They must have been hallucinating the hallucinations!
According to the recipe given in Wiki, it includes three very powerful Psychedelic Amphetamines. Perhaps it causes “no hallucinations” in the same way that LSD, mescaline, mushrooms, and Psychedelic Amphetamines cause no hallucinations [just distortions?].
The Wiki recipe says it contains nutmeg which contains the Myristicin (non-amine precursor of MDMA/Ecstasy: Myristicin becomes Ecstasy once it enters the body). Nutmeg also contains Safrole, the non-amine precursor to MDA, which got famous in the 1960s as the Love Drug of America.
Wiki also lists Sweet Flag (Acorus calamus) as an ingredient. The active ingredient of Calamus is Asarone, the non-amine precursor of TMA. While that abbreviation remains esoteric, it has inspired great and influential literature:
Walt Whitman wrote over 100 of his poems in Leave of Grass while tripping on Calamus. Google Whitman Calamus to read some of them. Stanley Kubrick was probably under its influence when he wrote the book 2001: A Space Odyssey, since the essential chapter of the short book is titled TMA-1:
The drug TMA-1 is eighteen times as powerful as Mescaline.
I think, if someone throws sufficient quantities of three of the most powerful Psychedelic Amphetamines in with Thujone and Egenol, and some other herbs, and gets roaring drunk and a little sick at the same time…I think there might be some hallucinations!
(spelling correction in last line: Eugenol)