FRANCE: Brutish Wormwood

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swizzling. " It was the young fools of the 'sophisticates' of Paris who started all the trouble. Like the young fools of today they tried to 'show the world they could take it.' They would lounge around at tables and drink a quart of absinthe a day and boast about it. Finally they got where they drank their daily quart of absinthe straight, without mixing it with anything. French workmen began to copy their habits. So France made the sale of absinthe illegal—in France! French absinthe makers were permitted to continue making absinthe for export. France wasn't worked about what absinthe did to anybody except the French in France! As a matter of fact one, two or three drinks of absinthe a day never hurt anybody. Absinthe has definite medicinal properties. It will quiet an upset stomach."

If such statements border on pure New Orleans absinthe romance, they are piquant evidence of the sturdy enterprise of Jung & Wulff who during the U. S. period of Prohibition sold 4,000 cases yearly of "non-alcoholic absinthe." In what New Orleans calls "the legal confusion which followed Repeal," Jung & Wulff sold 1,500 cases of absinthe until ordered to desist last May.

Under President Taft who was fond of Sazerac cocktails containing absinthe, as was President Harding, absinthe was outlawed throughout the U. S. by Decision No. 147 under the Pure Food & Drugs Decision of 1912, remains outlawed today despite Repeal.

A famous French recipe for absinthe requires two kinds of wormwood, "grande absinthe" and "petite absinthe." Proportions: grande absinthe 250 grams; petite absinthe 50 gm.; hysope 100 gm.; citronelle 100 gm.; anis vert 500 gm.; badian 100 gm.; fenouil 200 gm.; and coriandre 100 gm. Directions: Soak the above in 5 litres of pure alcohol (85° C.) for 24 hours. Add 2^ litres of water. Distill this mixture. Take off 21/20 litres of pure distillate. Add to this 2½| litres of pure alcohol (85° C.) and 2¾ litres of distilled water to obtain, in all, about 10 litres of absinthe. Color with chlorophyll.

In Europe most connoisseurs take their green devil in the form of an "absinthe drip." Sugar is placed in a special absinthe spoon pierced with holes which is held above a tall glass. Some begin by putting absinthe in the glass, pouring water over the sugar. Others begin with water in the glass, pour absinthe over the sugar and achieve the same effect, a cloudy, greenish, diluted drink. Only fools sip absinthe straight.

"Absinthe frappe" is really an absinthe julep. New Orleans masters put half a teaspoonful of sugar in the bottom of a tall glass, fill up with finely shaved ice, let the sugar dissolve, pour in 1-oz. (jigger) of absinthe, stir with a spoon, and finally add one ounce of carbonated water, drop by drop, stirring all the time until the frappe turns cloudy and thick frost forms on the glass. Similar are French absinthe frappes except for the carbonated water.