How Absinthe Is A Alcoholic Distilled Spirit - 1340 Words

Absinthe is a highly alcoholic distilled spirit, reputed to have psychotropic qualities. In the history of liquors it holds a special place for being one of the most controversial drinks of French history. Yet it wasn’t always that way, for a period in the late 1800’s absinthe was one of the most popular liquors in the western world. Some companies at the height of its popularity produced over 30,000 liters of it a day. American Chemist T. A. Breaux has spent years researching the drink; through his research he has found that the drink originated as a medicine developed as a digestive aide in the late 1700’s (pg.2-3). The drink then rose in popularity after the 1840’s when the French government would dispense rations of the drink to its soldiers fighting in foreign campaigns as a means of purifying unclean water. These soldiers developed a taste for the drink claiming it to be the drink of a true man, due to its strong bitter taste (pg. 4-5). By the late 1870’s it became the most coveted drink, especially among artist and intellectuals who would feature the iconic drink in their works. Such as Edgar Degas famous Painting L’Absinthe or The Absinthe Drinker, painted in 1876 the painting depicts two figures of a woman and a man sitting inside a French cafà ©, Cafà © la Nouvelle-Athà ¨nes in Paris. In the painting the man dressed as a lower-middle class citizen is sitting to the right away from the viewer off the canvas drinking a French drink known to be a remedy for curing a