Absinthe is a very powerful alcoholic beverage (45%–74% ABV). If you have never tried it but are familiar with drinking in the American South, think white lightning. It was illegal in the US and many European countries beginning about 1915, and remained illegal until the 1990s. Commercial distillation of absinthe in the United States resumed in 2007.

It achieved great popularity as an alcoholic drink in late 19th- and early 20th-century France, particularly among Parisian artists and writers. Due in part to its association with bohemian culture, absinthe was opposed by social conservatives and prohibitionists. Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Vincent van Gogh, and Aleister Crowley were all notorious 'bad men' of that day who were (or were thought to be) devotees of the Green Fairy.

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