What Happened to the “Fee Verte” Notes on the Lost Drinking of Absinthe in Switzerland

Abstract

In the year 1908 the Swiss people voted out of legal production and distribution the very popular absinthe drink and created one of the few examples of a still successful “partial” alcohol prohibition. This article considers briefly the history of the absinthe ban and asks how such a well integrated drinking pattern “got lost” in a very short time. The changing designations of the substance, the substance users and the imputed social consequences of absinthe drinking are reconstructed. A definition of absinthe as poison, the labeling of the drinker as deviant and the attribution and amplification of a vast array of social problems to absinthe drinking constituted conditions for a successful prohibition.

Key Words:

• Absinthe
• Prohibition
• Switzerland