Cloudy Dreams in Green Absinthe

The golden age of absinthe was at the end of the nineteenth century, but its name is still widely recognized today. Its popularity owes much to the myths surroimding it. Absinthe is often said to change the mental state of the consumer, which is different from the effect of alcohol. Do scientific methods snpport this view  

After the first glass of absinthe you see things as you wish they were. After the second you see them as they are not Finally you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world. 1 mean disassociated. 

As always, reality is a little more complex. Absinthe became popular at a time when phylloxera plague destroyed almost all vineyards in France. The new drink 

Nevertheless, when the toxicity of absinthe is assessed, substances in addition to alcohol and even thujone must be considered. Copper sulfate, antimony trichloride and copper acetate were sometimes used to enhance the color of the drink, and methanol was a concern too. The concentration of thujone in typical absinthe was estimated as 200 mg/1 a centuiy ago. Realistically, this number was way too high. 2.5 kg of wormwood was used to make 2001 of absinthe, which means that a single liter of the final drink could not have contained more than 90 mg of the essential oil. Assuming a veiy high, 70% thujone content in the oil, it still leads to an estimate of 60 mg/1 for the concentration in the final product. 

Recent measurements have not shown high thujone contents, either. Modem absinthe made by a traditional recipe has an average thujone concentration of 1.3 mg/1. Absinthe samples preserved from the pre-prohibition period did not show levels higher than 10 mg/1. A study of 147 commercial products showed that 55% contained less than 2 mg/1 of thujone. European Union regulations today set the limit for the thujone content in drinks at 35 mg/1, as experience shows that the neurotoxicity of this substance is negligible at this level. In the light of scientific results, the prohibition of absinthe was lifted in most European countries. 

---