Drinking Wyoming: Absinthe, Spirit Of Murder And Madness, Is Back In Wyoming

Absinthe has always had a way of sucking people in and down a rabbit hole, without so much as saying “drink me.”

The emerald liquor is an Alice-in-Wonderland kind of drink, quickly earning itself the legendary nickname La Fee Verte — French for The Green Fairy — back when famous poets and painters claimed it as their muse.

Today, absinthe is an uncommon find in the Cowboy State. Only a handful of places serve it the old-fashioned way — Le Reve Restaurant & Raw Bar in Sheridan and Backwards Distilling Co. in Casper.

Order it from the menu and eyebrows around you will raise, along with a tiny hint of speculation based on history from bygone years.

“Doesn’t that cause hallucinations?” people will ask with wide eyes.

It doesn’t, actually, you might explain. That’s more of a myth perpetrated by a jealous wine industry in the early 1900s after too many people preferred absinthe to wine.

Thujone is the chemical that was long blamed for causing absinthe visions. It comes from wormwood, one of several herbs that give traditional absinthe its bright green color.

But more recently, industry studies have found it would take more thujone to cause visions than is available in even European absinthe, where the limit is a more generous 35 milligrams. American absinthe is limited to a much smaller quantity, at less than 10 parts per million.

A person would die first of alcohol poisoning before having a single thujone-inspired vision from a European absinthe, much less an American one.

But that information doesn’t tend to dissuade those who have heard otherwise. The rumors of murder and madness that surround absinthe won’t be dispelled by the likes of mere science.

Legends can be like that. And the legends surrounding absinthe not only refuse to die, but have tended to grow in the telling.

What else would one expect, after spending nearly a century as forbidden?

The Charms Of Forbidden Fruit

It’s the forbidden that makes the drink attractive, Absinthe Society of Buffalo’s Sam Humphrey told Cowboy State Daily.

“Because of all the bad publicity it just got this big aura,” he said. “It makes you crazy, or it give you hallucinations — all this kind of stuff, which is absolutely not true.”

More likely, Humphrey suggested, it was the high alcohol content of the drink, combined with adulterants of the time — things like copper sulfate, antimony or chloride. Not to mention cheapster distillers eager to turn a quick profit, who weren’t above adding questionable things to their product.

Humphrey learned of the drink after his sister brought him a bottle from the Czech Republic. Czechoslovakia was among the few countries around the world that didn’t outlaw the drink in the early 1900s.

Humphrey liked it, but it was only after he did a deep dive into its history that he really became hooked.

It does have a fascinating history. At first it was more medicinal in nature. But after a failed grape harvest, its popularity surged. People didn’t have wine to drink, so absinthe would do.

Grapes soon returned, of course, along with wine. But customers did not.

They kept drinking their absinthe instead.

That did not make the powerful wine industry happy. No, not at all.

It began a smear campaign, using the temperance movement as a vehicle, claiming that the liquor was truly a poison that could cause all manner of hallucinations and murderous intentions.

The French National League Against Alcoholism, for example, produced a series of postcards that purported to chronicle the decline and fall of a worker who had succumbed to absinthe.

But it was the family murder by a Swiss worker named Jean Lanfray, allegedly under absinthe’s evil influences, that really gave the wine industry’s campaign to ban absinthe wings.

Lanfray had shot his pregnant wife and two children after a drinking binge that began and ended with absinthe, then he hanged himself in prison before sentencing.

Switzerland banned the drink in 1908 and most of the world followed suit. America banned it in 1912, and it would remain illegal here until 2007.

The Drink Of Mad Genius

But absinthe was highly popular before it was forbidden, so there is more to its allure than that.

Great poets and painters practically worshipped the drink.

Hemingway loved it in a glass of champagne, calling the cocktail “Death in the Afternoon” after a short story of the same name, and said that, “It’s supposed to rot your brain out, but I don’t believe it. It only changes the ideas.”

Oscar Wilde suggested it is a sunset for the senses in a glass, while Picasso claimed it as a personal muse for a time, including both drinkers and paraphernalia in his paintings.

The link to mad genius was a component of its allure, long before the forbidden.

Perhaps the attraction for famous artists and writers of the day like Hemingway and Van Gogh was fairly simple. Absinthe is a mighty strong drink, and the literary and artistic types of the day were, by and large, men who loved their drink as strong as possible.

Lightning In A Glass

Absinthe is not quite as strong as Everclear, but it’s close. In fact, it’s so strong, it’s typically not served as a shot.

Instead, there’s an elaborate ritual involved, an experience most recently offered at Le Reve in Sheridan. Backwards Distilling, in Casper, also still has absinthe fountains.

The ritual cannot help but build a little anticipation for the drink.

First, a small cube of sugar is floated above the shot using a slotted spoon. The glass is then placed under the spigot of an ornate fountain. 

Iced water from the fountain drips onto the sugar cube until finally all the sugar dissolves into the drink.

This takes a fair bit of time, and there’s not much to do but watch and wait as this process plays out, so a little anticipation is difficult to avoid. 

Eventually the drink turns quite cloudy, a little storm in a glass that tingles a bit, like lightning on the tongue.

The cloud is a bit of chemical magic. 

The herbal infusion used to make absinthe releases essential oils into the liquor. But these oils aren’t really water soluble. So, as the water drops into the drink, the alcohol loses its hold on them. Eventually, they can’t help themselves. The oils will pop out of solution, creating a milky appearance and intensifying the scent of botanicals from the drink.

The cloud is the signal that absinthe is ready to drink — although many people at that point might still want to add a bit more water, as the drink is still quite strong.

Absinthe Shines In Cocktails

Where absinthe really shines, in the opinion of Backwards Distilling’s Amber Pollock, is in cocktails.

While the distillery in Casper does have several fountains, it’s not a service that’s often requested twice, Pollock said. 

“I personally don’t like the flavor of black licorice in candy, although I do like it in absinthe,” she said. “But typically, it features in a lot of kind of older cocktails in very small amounts, like just a rinse of the glass or something like that, for the aromatics it brings to the table.”

That’s the case for the Negroni, a classic Italian cocktail known for its bold and distinctive flavor. Some of its signature bitterness is from Campari, but some is from the absinthe rinse that starts the cocktail.

“Our current absinthe cocktail is made with our gin and absinthe,” Pollock said. “And then it’s got a grapefruit soda and some citrus juice in it, with some rosemary, so it’s really nice and refreshing.”

Pollock’s favorite cocktail, though, is Hemingway’s Death in the Afternoon. She doesn’t make it at Backwoods Distilling — liquor laws forbid it. 

“We can only serve distilled spirits and that one requires champagne,” she said. “If I could serve champagne, though, I would absolutely be serving those. They are really good.”

Pollock said she does know of absinthe tasting parties.

“I have some friends here who do an absinthe get-together at their house for the solstice, which is pretty fun,” she said. “And they’ll do the traditional drip as kind of a solstice celebration with friends.”

Humphrey and his wife do a similar tasting once or twice a year, usually during the holidays, and invite friends over for dinner and absinthe. 

“We’ll generally have three different kinds to try,” he said. “We dress in Victorian outfits to match the Belle Epoch.”

Inspiration For A New Distillery

While a handful of places offer absinthe service, Backwards is the only company in Wyoming that makes the actual spirit from scratch.

It was a passion project — or perhaps obsession— for Pollock’s brother, Chad. He’d first learned about it from art and literature. The mystique of it reeled him in. 

On his 21st birthday, he was gifted a bottle of the stuff. 

At first, he didn’t like it all that much. But it grew on him, and he started collecting it from distillers around the world, even took a trip to Belgium for an authentic European tasting experience. 

In America, though, he found the options more than a little lackluster. The last straw, Amber Pollock said, was when her brother went to a bar claiming to have the largest absinthe collection west of the Mississippi.

“It was just a handful of bottles,” she said. “He was like, ‘I have more than that in my own collection.’”

As he complained about it being so hard to find, their mom made a fateful suggestion. 

“Why don’t you make some yourself?” Amber recalled. 

“I think she was thinking more like, ‘Why don’t you infuse some high-proof spirit with all the botanicals,’ not so much like start a business and distill it from scratch,” Amber said. “But it quickly kind of turned into that.”

Let Freedom Ring

Absinthe, however, wasn’t the first spirt Backwards Distilling made, even though it was the inspiration for the business. 

Part of the reason for that was the spirt proved as elusive to make as it had been to find. 

“It’s not easy to source the botanicals,” Amber said. “Many of them are pretty specific.”

For one, absinthe traditionally has more than one kind of wormwood in it.

“Ours has grand wormwood, petite wormwood and green anise,” Amber said. “And we have star anise in ours, which is a common one and then, you know, it’s kind of like a gin in that you can put different botanicals in there to highlight different flavor types. 

“So that’s where all the R&D kind of went in, was getting the flavor combinations right.”  

Once they had a formula they were pleased with, there were some legal hurdles to clear as well.

“In terms of getting it approved through the federal government, you have to submit the formula to them, and then we did have it lab-tested,” Amber said. 

That gave them a hard copy record, proving their preparation didn’t exceed the legal 10 ppm threshold for thujone that American absinthe sellers must follow.

Beyond that, absinthe isn’t something that Amber and her brother Chad believe would keep their business afloat. 

“It’s quite niche,” she said. “The people who love it, do love it. But it won’t keep the lights on.”

Despite that, there are no plans to stop serving the liquor at Backwards Distilling. 

It’s unique among drinks, and has a fascinating history, full of unfair dealings and suppression of freedoms by a corrupt industry intent on its own gain.

All of that makes it a liquor they’re proud to serve in Wyoming, while freedom still rings.

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.