ABSINTHE IN FRANCE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2746, 4 December 1894, Page 3

ABSINTHE IN FRANCE.

The coming of absinthe has been a slow and steady growth in France. This is the mere peculiar because of the fact that brandy-drinking (for the sake of intoxication) has no vogue, whisky is not known, and rum, like brandy,is only taken after dinner, in a tiny glass. Heretofore the people had the ancient habit of drinking trine in all'the ancient freedom. Absinthe has been the opening wedge to break up the wine-drinking habit. It is laughable to see how absinthe drinkers take their dinner later year by year. Men who dined two years ago at 6.30 p.m. each day now dine at 7 and 7-30. They wish to sit an hour before their second or third glass, Thero are these who say that the comparative downfall of the threatre in Paris duirng the last five years is due in great part to late dining, following on late drinking in the afternoon. Even more than Paris, the South of France gives an example of this change of ways in drinking. The people of the South of France complain with reason that their wine no longer brings its price. Yet they set the most notorious example of neglecting it. The religion of the aperitif lives in more vigor in the South of France than in the capital. From the mouth of the Girond to the Pyrenees, from the Pyrenees to the farthest shores of the Mediterranean and to the Alps, the drinker of absinthe and vermouth are without number. And, down there, with a logic which|is feminine and characteristic of the south, they cut the Gordian knot by taking their aperitif before and after meals. The innkeepers of the mountains and the plains have all adopted the same methods. It is not one glass of absinthe which they serve to their customers —it is the bottle itself

How many taka two glasses, without counting the rinceite — the final “rmce,” which you take free —uo one can know. The number must bo very high, at least in Porpignen; for in certain large cafes of that city the proprietors have been obliged in their own interest to stop the custom of passing the bottle. Instead they serve a small carafe of absinthe, out of which the client may get two fair glasses. But he is obliged to atop there or buy another portion. When I say two glasses 1 mean wine glafSJs. Before this now departure, when they gave the bottle, the proprietors were being ruined. This exaggerated consumption of absinthe prevails equally in the mining countries of the south. In many of the districts absinthe has become the current drink. It is drunk even at the table, mixed with water. Thus absinthe has become an important factor in social life. What it all means is simply this; When people learn to takei strong alcohol mere wine becomes insipid. As to absinthe in particular its special flavour, strength, and moderate price unite to make it popular.— Paris Correspondent.