NATGEOTRAVEL.COM
TASTE OF TRAVEL
ABSINTHE
A Spirited Return
Banned for more than a century in its
Alpine heartland, absinthe is being
poured with panache
By Carolyn Boyd
Photographs by Clara TumaA
s I take a sip, I can’t help but think
the setting is a little incongruous.
I’m not perching on a bar stool but
standing in a sun-dappled forest at Fontaine
à Louis, a spring-fed woodland fountain in
the region where absinthe originated, the
Swiss Jura. Yann Klauser, head of the local
absinthe museum, Maison de l’Absinthe, is
adding water from the spring to his own shot.
It was at tree-shrouded springs like this, he
tells me, that absinthe was covertly sipped
during the century-long ban.
I almost expect the police to jump out and
arrest us for illicit drinking, but as of 2008
in Switzerland (2011 in France), this is all
aboveboard. Nevertheless, absinthe is still a
drink that strikes fear into the heart of some
spirit lovers. During the heady days of the
belle epoque, La Fée Verte (The Green Fairy)
acquired a reputation as the mind-bending
tipple of choice for van Gogh, Zola, Rimbaud,