News: French Absinthe ban lifted

A change in the law of France sees Absinthe - a drink long associated with the country - finally legalised.

Absinthe, La Fée verte, was banned in France in 1914.

Until the ban it had been hugely popular in France, in 1910 the French were drinking 36 million litres of absinthe a year, a far higher consumption than the amount of wine that was being drunk in the country.

It was cheap and its popularity cut across social class, and had a long association with the artistic and literary scene in the late 19th-early 20th century Paris.

The ban came about on account of numerous scare stories linking the drink with madness and criminality.

Pernod, which had been one of the most widely consumed brands of Absinthe until the ban, started to manufacture a "pastiche" of the drink - one that retained the aniseed taste but did not contain the wormwood - once it was made illegal. That too proved to be a rather popular drink in France.

The Absinthe revival really got under way in the UK in the 1990s, when Czech-manufactured Absinth was imported into the country, where it had never been banned unlike in most of mainland Europe.

Manufacture began again in France in 2000, with La Fée Absinthe, although essentially for export only as despite the EU lifing the ban on Absinthe in 1998, France passed a law banning products labelled as "Absinthe" and controlled the permitted ingredients. Manufacturers got round this by labelling their drinks as "Spiritueux à base de plantes d'absinthe".

The legislation was eventually repealed in 2009 following a legal challenge by the manufacturers, and the Senate have finally voted to legalize Absinthe again.

More on the absinthe ban on the BBC website >