If ever there was a spirit cursed with a double-edged sword, it’s absinthe. On one hand, its many nicknames include the Green Fairy and the Green Muse. Drinkers of it include such notables of potables as Edgar Degas, van Gogh, Gauguin, Ernest Hemingway, Picasso, Oscar Wilde, and maybe it’s most famous drinker of all, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. 

Ah, but then there is the other side of the sword. Another nickname for it is: The Guillotine of the Soul. What gives its bitter flavour, green colour, and bad press is its most well-known ingredient, wormwood. This has to be the only spirit ingredient that gets its own mention – twice – in the Bible. In the book of Revelations, wormwood is used to symbolize a fallen star that turns a third of the world’s water too bitter to drink.

Absinthe, and its ingredient wormwood, were seen as the source of society’s ills – probably by those secretly jealous of early hipsters – and by 1915 absinthe was banned throughout most of Europe and the USA. The UK never banned absinthe, but this could be because few drank it here.

But that was then, and this is now. All bans have been lifted and for the first time ever, absinthe is being distilled in London by Rhys Everett and Allison Crawbuck. Today, we’re joining them at their distillery, the Devil’s Botany, in East London to get to the bottom of the Green Fairy.