Wednesday, January 03, 2007

New York Times article

"Trying to Clear Absinthe’s Reputation" is an informative fluff piece on absinthe and champagne in the form of a "cocktail profile," the cocktail being Hemingway's absinthe+champagne concoction mentioned in “Death in the Afternoon”.

I'm not sure how Hemingway's recipe could help shake absinthe's bad rep, but the article is well researched and has a good all-inclusive paragraph on history and "dangers" suitable for cutting-n-pasting-n-mailing:

Absinthe became tremendously popular throughout Europe in the 19th century. It was blamed for causing hallucinations, mental instability and criminal behavior, which medical authorities attributed to thujone. This belief helped get absinthe banned. But according to the new study, by Dirk W. Lachenmeier and colleagues, the modern medical consensus is that absinthism was either simple alcohol poisoning — some absinthes were 70 percent alcohol, nearly double the strength of most distilled drinks — or caused by methanol and other toxic adulterants found in some cheap absinthes.

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