Absint, bakke til servering

ABSINT FACTS

- First distilled in Val-de-Travers in Switzerland at end of 18th Century

- Name comes from its special ingredient Artemisia absinthium, commonly known as grande wormwood, which contains thujone

- Medicinal use of wormwood dates back to ancient Egypt

- At height of popularity, there were more than 1,000 distilleries of absinthe in France

- Was given to French soldiers in Algeria in 1840s as was believed to prevent malaria

- In the 19th Century the city with the biggest consumption, after Paris, was New Orleans in the US

- The French drink pastis started to be made after the absinthe ban came in. It has a similar aniseed flavour

- The US banned absinthe in 1912 - eight years before prohibition came in; it lifted the ban in 2007