Will Absinthe make you hallucinate?

Ah, the storied “Green Fairy,” absinthe. But can she really make you fly?

As you may or may not have heard—depending on how invested you’ve been in the recently lifted absinthe ban—absinthe has long had a bad (or good, depending on your habits) reputation for causing hallucinations. It was even considered to be a source of creative inspiration for artists like Hemingway, Van Gogh, and Oscar Wilde, a famous absinthe devotee who (no surprise) had some pretty bitterly incisive stuff to say about his favorite drink.*

And then a very big, very damning incident occurred in 1905, when a Swiss vineyard worker named Jean Lanfray actually murdered his entire family, presumably under the influence of absinthe’s hallucinogenic powers. While Lanfray had consumed two glasses of absinthe that day, he’d actually been drinking all manner of alcohol all morning (and the previous days). But for a variety of reasons—including some interest from wine producers, who were losing ground to the stuff—absinthe was blamed, causing widespread moral outrage and, eventually, a ban.


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