Maison de l'Absinthe, Canton of Neuchatel, Switzerland

4saronic 5:00 PM May 14, 2021

about the 'Green Fairy'
It is almost a joke that the 'Maison de l'Absinthe', opened in 2014, is housed in Môtiers old courthouse. After all absinthe was a forbidden product in Switzerland from 1910 until 2005, but it is said that secret production went on during all these years with an estimated annual output of about 10'000 liters. The bootleggers apparently considered themselves not as criminals, but as resistance fighters. Today in most villages of the Val-de-Travers distillers are offering their brand of absinthe completely legally, usually with a young green fairy depicted on the bottle label and on the advertisement posters. As the history goes absinthe was first produced here in Couvet at the end of the 18th century more as a medicine, later becoming a popular liquor. Especially during the Fin de Siècle it was the fashionable drink of Paris, consumed with a certain ritual during 'L'heure verte' at 5pm. Many famous writers and artists of the day have written about it or painted pictures of 'absinthe drinkers'. There are 9 museum rooms in the 'Maison de l'absinthe' with information given on all aspects of this liquid, but only in French and German. There is also a bar, where one can try a 'Fée verte', although today it is usually not of a green colour anymore, but clear. Nearby is a shop, selling bottles of various brands of absinthe to take home. At the back is a garden with real wormwood plants (Artemisia absinthium), whose chemical ingredient 'thujon' was the main reason to have absinthe forbidden during most of the 20th century in many countries. An absinthe is made by adding to pure alcohol the 'holy trinity' of wormwood, green anise and sweet fennel, although other aromatic herbs can be put in as well. At the museum are exhibited slotted spoons, once used to dilute a cube of sugar on top of the absinthe. In the Val-de-Travers more common is the use of a 'fontaine', placed in the middle of a table with usually four spouts, from which ice cold water dripped slowly into the absinthe glasses underneath it.

4jeffreyjack 5:00 PM Jun 12, 2019

The history of Absinthe in the old government building built to monitor it
Good tour about the history of Absinthe in the area in which it was invented. Many of the regions Absinthe producers are represented in the tasting bar. The myth is legendary, the truth is political.