THE ABSINTHE FORGER

The cultural history of absinthe, via an audacious contemporary fraud.

Rail, most of whose previous books are about beer, assembles a multilayered account of absinthe’s return to mainstream society, navigating the history of decadence and moral panics that led to most countries banning the liquor from 1915 until about 2007. The existence of an “absinthe underground,” fixated on illicit distilling and on unearthing stashes of pre-ban absinthe bottles, enabled a con artist calling himself Christian to sell reclaimed antique bottles filled with his carefully ersatz blends, which simulated highly sought-after pre-ban absinthes that routinely sold for thousands of euros in these online communities. “He made a small fortune on it, but he basically ruined the whole absinthe community," one distiller comments. Rail explores how Christian fooled even connoisseurs: “The man was a cornerstone of the absinthe world, a trusted authority on both antiques and spirits.” While attempting to track down Christian (who scrubbed his online presence after exposure by other prominent “absintheurs”), Rail wanders through European locales where absinthe distilling has revived, including Switzerland and Czechoslovakia, and meets iconoclastic figures from the absinthe revival, most of whom were befriended and then burned by Christian. Rail argues that the incident exemplifies the degree to which high-end drinking culture relies on trust and social currency, concluding that as a result of Christian's exposure, “Doubts extended to the entirety of absinthe culture. Part of the problem was that no one knew how long the counterfeits had been circulating.” His writing is lively and informed but sometimes rambling, with digressions about his food writing, the science behind unmasking the phony spirits, and the contentious personalities of the since-dispersed underground absinthe scene.

An entertaining survey of spirits culture past and present.