next »

[ian]

FYI - I confirmed this with a friend who works at a liquor store.   

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/16-08/st_15absinthe#

In the 20,000 years or so that humans have been getting piss-drunk, no spirit has earned a worse rap than absinthe. Said to turn mild-mannered imbibers into raving maniacs, it was banned in the US and much of Europe in the early 1900s. (Remember Van Gogh's ear incident? Some scholars blame the green fairy.) The chemical culprit was thujone, a toxic compound found in the crushed flowers and leaves of absinthe's key ingredient, wormwood. Or so we thought.