Absinthe

Absinthe is a highly alcoholic anise-flavored spirit distilled with green anise, sweet fennel and the herb Artemisia absinthium, commonly known as wormwood, from which it takes its name. It developed in Switzerland in the late eighteenth century and became enormously popular in France in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially among Parisian artists, poets and writers, who nicknamed it the Green Fairy. Fears that its wormwood-derived compound thujone caused hallucinations, addiction and mental illness led to bans across much of Europe and the United States in the early twentieth century, restrictions later shown to rest on exaggerated toxicity claims. Most of those bans were lifted by the early 2000s, and absinthe is again legally produced and sold in most countries.