La Fée Parisienne Absinthe, 1 x 70cl

Product Information

La Fée captures the aroma and taste that great writers and artists such as Rimbaud, Toulouse-Lautrec and Vincent van Gogh enjoyed at the end of the 19th century" Absinthe becomes widely exported around the world. New York, New Orleans and as far as China, enjoyed by millions in the heyday of the Belle Époque 1871 to 1914. I set up my first company, Bohemia Beer House Ltd. (now trading as BBH Spirits Ltd.) with the aim of evaluating and exporting Czech beer. The intention, satisfyingly simple, was to allow me to continue to enjoy living in Prague, home of our first office, under the management of Radomir Horacek, whilst letting me come home to England; my intended market. You may well ask what has this to do with absinthe-drinking today, but bear with me: The learning curve provided by this period of self-education in the industry was the foundation of my role in returning absinthe commercially to Europe. George studied all the legal issues surrounding spirits and absinthe in the EU and again enrolled that helpful local Trading Standards Officer, Paul Passi, in his battle with a document called EU Council Directive 88/388/EEC. This resulted in the first legal government-signed document on absinthe issued by an EU country since the blanket absinthe bans took effect around the world between 1898 and 1932. It was this watershed document that set the legal precedent for all subsequent absinthe sales in

Absinthe was all the rage across turn-of-the-century Europe until governments started to ban its sale with the French ban of 1915 effectively eradicating the spirit from most of the world’s bars. Prior to George’s involvement in absinthe, few had much interest in seeing its return, and those that did simply didn’t spend as much time scrutinising the terms of each nation’s ban for loopholes. Had they done so, they’d have found that the 1915 French ban only applied to the sale, rather than the production of absinthe, leaving the way open for a French distillery to produce it, quite legitimately, for export. George became the first to exploit this loophole (as you’ll read later). In March 2003, George overcame the French ban on the sale of absinthe by changing the name of La Fée Absinthe to La Fée Aux Plantes d’Absinthe, that is to say not Absinthe, but made from the plant of the same name - enough of a difference to make it acceptable to French customs. This hiccup caused a delay of several days, and involved diverting the load north, on a much less direct route through Holland. With the goods still in transit but the launch date fixed, one of the newspapers broke the “exclusive” story almost a week before the date which had been agreed upon. Bizarrely, this turned out to be a stroke of good fortune. Like so many who have become drinks industry entrepreneurs, George’s career started in the corporate world, in his case as an international claims broker at Lloyd’s of London, dealing in the risks associated with terrorism, riots, strikes and cyclones across the world. In 1992, a position with the largest broking house covering the Czech and Slovak Republics led him to move to Prague. This watershed document set the legal precedent for absinthe sales in Europe, though at the time it was done in respect of absinth [without the ‘e’] from the Czech Republic, which in 1998 wasn’t an EU member state. Acquiring an absintheThe brand name of La Fée was chosen, inspired by the “green fairy” as absinthe was known in turn-of-the-century Paris. The now iconic eye illustration was commissioned as the brand’s motif. La Fée was to become the first traditional French absinthe to be commercially produced in France since the ban of 1915. Marie-Claude Delahaye is a lecturer in cellular biology at the University of Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris. She found her first absinthe spoon in 1981 and was immediately transfixed by the ‘Green Fairy’. The next day, the intrepid entrepreneurs received a call from the BBC asking if they could demonstrate the Sugar & Burn ritual on Newsnight that evening? The demonstration was duly filmed at Detroit, a funky London bar sadly long since closed. The genie Green Fairy was literally out the bottle and it seemed everybody wanted to experience the absinth Sugar & Burn ritual. Absinthe caused a furore La Fée Absinthe Blanche Parisienne was first distilled in 2011 in association with the Musée de l’Absinthe, Auvers-sur-Oise, France, and its founder and curator, Marie-Claude Delahaye. It is distilled in copper stills at the Cherry Rocher distillery in the Rhône-Alpes region of south-east France and contains 11 different herbs and spices, including Artemisia absinthium (Grande Wormwood) and Artemisia pontica (Petite Wormwood). It is bottled at 53% ABV: The traditional strength for Blanche absinthe was 53% ABV - 55% ABV. [ citation needed]

All-natural ingredients (colour clear), distilled in France. Central ingredient being Grand Absinthe (Artemisia absinthium) and having a classic strength of 53%abv. George’s first stop was the Schimmel Library, Europe’s oldest and most authoritative collection of works on herbalism. This privately-owned library contains texts so rare and valuable that they are permanently stored in air-conditioned vaults. Here he found documented recipes, sent from the library to Bohemia in the 1890s. These formed the essence of what became La Fée Absinth Bohemian. Not to be confused with pre-ban French Absinthe, this has its own taste profile in the Bohemian style. It was made for its ability to blend, mix and layer, not to mention burn.

It was widely propagated that absinthe’s principal ingredient, wormwood, had hallucinogenic properties, which made you do irrational, impulsive things. Nonsense, of course, but that disparaging one-liner remains in hearts and minds, even today. In reality, absinthe was merely a contributor to the alcoholism that pervaded Europe at the time. Oscar Wilde - Famed author and playwright of such works as 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'. Drank absinthe at Café Royal, London They teamed up: Moore on the PR and Rowley, among other things, on the creation of a template to legalise the drink in the EU (the Czech Republic was not yet a member). ‘I went to three labs in the UK and not one of them could do the proper chemical compound analysis – crazy!’ says Rowley. But with the help of Prague University, the analysis tools were created to do a proper commercial test. Best of all, he found that the United Kingdom had not banned absinthe in the first place. It was never heavily consumed by the average Brit and both WWI and the French ban effectively meant that absinthe supplies in Britain simply dried up.