[crackmonkey] [snatcher@pigdog.org: Re: [Pigdog] FUCK FUCK FUCK]

[Nick Moffitt]

	I lied.

----- Forwarded message from Zacharoni & Cheese <snatcher at pigdog.org> -----
The Independent - 1 December 1998

After 70 years, the toast of Bohemia returns to Britain

By Darius Sanai

The Alphabet Bar in Soho, London, was yesterday witness to the first
official tasting of absinthe in Britain since the 1920s. Once the
inspirational liquor of the artistic and literary masses of the 19th
century, the glowing green herbal-aniseed liquid is poised for a
revival as the drink of the fin de millenaire.

Toulouse Lautrec drank absinthe from a hollow walking stick, Manet and
Degas both painted absinthe drinkers in advanced states of
intoxication. Other drinkers included Picasso, Zola, Rimbaud and
Baudelaire.

Absinthe last laced the brains of Europe's Bohemian masses just after
the First World War until it was banned by the authorities across
Europe for causing insanity. At the turn of the century, 50 per cent
of the inhabitants of French asylums were there because of the effects
of absinthe.

The authorities had a point. At 70 per cent alcohol, (140 degrees
proof), absinthe would serve as an excellent oven-cleaner, with the
additional advantage of containing taugone, a narcotic similar to
cannabis. Taken with sugar, a splash of water and ice, absinthe tastes
slightly minty, has a powerful kick and is liable to make you mistake
your fellow drinkers for your best friends.

Originally made from wormwood - a herbal remedy derived from bark -
and pure alcohol and herbs, after the ban absinthe soon sank into
obscurity, being served only in the artistic quarters of Prague and
Barcelona.

Green Bohemia, a company formed by four young Londoners, has started
importing the liquid from the Czech Republic, where it is distilled,
and supplying it, in limited quantities, at stlg40 a bottle to
London's most fashionable bars.

The Groucho Club, the Met Bar, Detroit and Alphabet will be serving
the drink in cocktails over the Christmas season. If the reaction of
the beau monde in the Alphabet was anything to go by, it will go down
very well indeed.

"I'm very impressed," said Tony Robinson, 66, who last tried absinthe
in a bar in Paris in the 1960s. "It's full of character, like an
artists' palette."

Louise Kawecki was a fount of knowledge about absinthe and its effects
on Van Gogh. "He had a fight with Gauguin and cut off his ear," she
said, and took another sip.



-- 

                 .^....^.  "I don't like the feel of 
                 ! .\/. !  [the sun] on my skin."
                 (. oo .)            --Christopher Walken
                  `{""}'    

----- End forwarded message -----

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