absinthe
noun
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In 1797, Swiss Henri-Louis Pernod was the first to commercially produce an alcoholic drink from the bitter herb Artemisia absinthium, known commonly as wormwood. By the mid-to-late 1800s this bright green distillation, by then known in both French and English as "absinthe," had become wildly popular, especially among artists and writers, but it also had a reputation for making people a little wild. In fact, it was linked to several nasty disorders, including convulsions and foaming at the mouth. The accused culprit? A toxin in wormwood - perhaps the very chemical that gives the plant its tapeworm-exterminating properties (and thus its name). Because of these reported side effects of wormwood, true absinthe was banned in many countries (including the U.S.) in the early 1900s, but that didn't remove the taste for the drink. Wormwood’s name was later cleared (the real culprit turned out to be the drink’s high alcohol content) and the absinthe ban was lifted in the U.S. in 2007.
Examples of absinthe in a Sentence
Tom Mullen, Forbes, 3 Nov. 2024
Making this Kentucky spirit, arguably, the best absinthe in the world.
—Maggie Menderski, The Courier-Journal, 29 Oct. 2024
In this recipe, greens get a splash of absinthe for a strong anise flavor, then the oysters are broiled to a light golden brown.
—Kaitlyn Yarborough, Southern Living, 27 Oct. 2024
The pop-up's haunted chemist vibe feeds into the Eastern Market distillery's October announcement of a new product release, Absinthe Supérieure Isabella, an absinthe named after a 16th century alchemist.
—Annalise Frank, Axios, 21 Oct. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Absinthe.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/absinthe. Accessed 26 Nov. 2024.
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absinthe
noun
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