Absinthe: The World's Most Dangerous Drink?

Gastropod

Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley

Science, Food, History, Arts

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 15 October 2024

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

To painters and poets in late-1800s France, absinthe was "the green muse" or the "green fairy," an almost magical potion that promised vivid dreams, wild ideas, and artistic inspiration with every sip. By the 1910s, this once incredibly popular herbal liquor was banned—not only in France, but in countries around the world. Condemned as the cause of both individual ruin and social decline, absinthe consumption was blamed for seizures, memory gaps, hallucinations, and even murderous rage. So what's the deal: is absinthe just a drink, or is it actually deadly? This episode, we've got the story behind the myths, from witchy distillers to women on bicycles, and military rations to pre-ban bottles. Join us for the trip! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I was to addition for Satin and I would taste my first glass of Absint.
0:07.0	I was a girl.
0:12.0	I am the Green Ferry.
0:13.0	The hills are the light.
0:18.0	Picasso sipped it.
0:21.0	Picasso sipped it. Oscar Wilde compared it to a sunset and Ernest Hemingway
0:26.7	wrote in a letter, got tight last night on absent did knife tricks.
0:31.1	Ooh absent the most dangerous drink in the world, am I right?
0:37.0	Well, a lot of governments have certainly thought so because they tried to keep all of us from drinking it for nearly a century.
0:43.0	But they can't stop us, or really anyone these days.
0:47.0	We, of course, are Gastropod, the podcast that looks at food
0:50.0	through the lens of science and history.
0:52.0	I'm Nicola Twilly. And I'm Cynthia Graber and first really what is this magical mysterious drink why was it ever banned and if it was dangerous enough to be banned Why did it become legal again?
1:02.8	Will drinking it really make you hallucinate and murder people or paint
1:07.6	masterworks and write epic poetry?
1:09.6	And is the absence you can find in bars today the same spirit that Oscar Wilde was
1:13.8	sipping more than a century ago? Buckle up kids this episode we are taking a deep
1:18.7	dark draft of absentth and seeing whether we live to tell the tale.
1:23.6	But first, it's time for what is becoming a biannual tradition.
1:27.5	Ask Gastropod, the episode in which we get to the bottom of the weird food questions bothering you. We're taking your questions
1:34.8	for our new us gastropod episode right now. Email us at contact at gastropod.com with the topic or
1:41.5	question you're curious about by November 15th and maybe we'll answer
	...

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