WEBVTT - Can Absinthe Make You Hallucinate? 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:02.520 Hey everybody, Like so many of you, my love for 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:05.360 learning didn't just stop when I finished school. I wouldn't 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:08.080 be doing this podcast otherwise. That's why I'm excited to 0:00:08.119 --> 0:00:12.080 tell you about the Great Courses Plus Video Learning service. 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:14.800 This is a service where you get unlimited access to 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:19.279 thousands of the great courses online lectures on many topics 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:22.320 that are taught by top professors. 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So I'm a fan of this. 0:00:57.480 --> 0:00:59.400 I want you to try it, and as one of 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:03.560 our listeners, when you sign up, you'll immediately get one 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:07.240 whole month free to start any lectures you want. Start 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:10.120 your free trial today by going to the Great Courses 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:14.680 plus dot com slash brain Stuff. That's the Great Courses 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:20.880 plus dot com slash brain Stuff. Welcome to brain Stuff 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:29.400 from How Stuff Works. Hey there, kids, I'm Christian Sager 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:31.560 and this is brain stuff. The one that is about 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:36.040 the most powerful of liquors absinthe. So in a Swiss 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:39.640 vineyard worker named John Lanfrey shot his pregnant wife and 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:43.920 his two daughters. Then he tried to kill himself unsuccessfully. 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:47.760 The public were absolutely outraged and blamed the whole thing 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:52.480 on two glasses of absinthe that Lanfrey had consumed before 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:55.720 his rampage. What is this beverage that could drive a 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:58.760 man to such madness? How is it made? Does it 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:03.920 actually make you hallucinate as some people claim? Well. Absinthe 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:07.320 is an annis flavored alcoholic drink, and for a while 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:11.119 there it was banned in the United States, Switzerland, and France. 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:14.880 It tastes kind of like liquorice. People used to call 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:18.560 it the green Fairy because it's green and supposedly it 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:22.240 made its consumers see things like you know, fairies. The 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:25.880 traditional recipe from before the band has a really high 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:30.600 alcohol content anywhere from fifty five to seventy, so you're 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:33.639 supposed to dilute it when you drink it, unless you've 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:37.359 already started the day drinking paint thinner, that is absence 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:40.760 made from anis phennel, a plant called wormwood, and a 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:44.239 variety of other herbs and flowers. You soak all these 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:48.000 ingredients in alcohol for anywhere from a day to a month. 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:51.600 Then you distill the mixture, causing it to evaporate and 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:56.200 leave behind bitter essences. You then recondense these with the 0:02:56.280 --> 0:03:01.160 alcohol as it cools and dilutes. Manufactures add more herbs 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:04.040 later to give it the milky greenish color that it's 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.120 known for. It gets it the roma from the wormwood, 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:10.520 something like a mix of cinnamon and clothes. But don't 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:12.200 go buying this stuff out of the trunk of a 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:17.360 stranger's car. Falsified absinthe is typically made with industrial alcohol, 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:22.920 food dye, antimony, and copper salts. With that combination, you 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:25.240 might as well just stick with the paint thinner. But 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:28.480 the vintage absinthe from before the band that stuff can 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:31.640 go for as much as five hundred dollars for three 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:36.160 ounce vial, or ten thousand dollars for an entire bottle. 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:41.120 Wormwood has been used medicinally since fifteen fifty two BC 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:45.240 in Egypt. It's bitter taste is so old it's actually 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:49.880 mentioned in the Bible as a representation of injustice. It 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:52.480 was used as a general remedy for disease in the 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:55.680 Middle Ages, and get this, Mothers used to apply it 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:59.000 to their nipples to wean their babies off of breast milk. 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:02.880 In the eighteenth century, a French physician is rumored to 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:07.200 have developed the absinthe recipe with wormwood. This recipe was 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:12.080 first commercially produced in seventeen seven by Henri Louis Pernode, 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:15.960 and a century later it was incredibly popular because a 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:20.279 vine pest had made wine less available and people needed 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:24.239 to get their drink on. Simultaneously, an anti alcohol movement 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:27.880 was growing, called for by both doctors, the clergy and 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:31.480 the wine growers who wanted their industry back. The growers 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:37.719 started a misinformation campaign linking absinthe to hallucinations, seizures, suicides, 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:42.279 and murders like those committed by Lanfrey. They even produced 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:45.960 posters denouncing addiction to the drink as absinthe is m 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:49.240 Recent studies however, have shown that if there was a 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:54.560 real problem, it was actually widespread alcoholism that was to blame. Remember, 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:58.320 absinthe has an incredibly high concentration of alcohol in it, 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:00.800 and at the time it was one the most highly 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:04.719 consumed drinks in France, so the two went hand in hand. 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:09.520 But the scientists of the time, perhaps misguided by absintheism propaganda, 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:14.920 missed this inter relationship. Instead, they performed experiments on animals 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:18.160 to prove that wormwood was at fault, and rather than 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:22.360 use absinthe in their tests, they use essence to absinthe, 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:26.480 which is essentially pure wormwood oil. They shut guinea pigs 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:30.000 up with saucers of absinthe and alcohol, testing the effects 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:33.320 as the animals huffed in the fumes. They even made 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:37.200 lesions in the brains and spinal cords of cats so 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:40.960 they could administer wormwood directly. Guess what, When you cut 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:43.839 up a cat and rub wormwood oil on its bare brain, 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:48.480 it has seizures. Seeing this as a confirmation of their hypotheses, 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:51.040 their results were assumed to have the same effect on 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:54.440 the humans who drank commercial absinthe. Now here's the thing. 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:58.400 There's a component in wormwood called fo jone that in 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:02.400 high doses can be toxic. We used to think that 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:06.680 it suppressed neurotransmitters in the brain, but it's actually a 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:12.160 gamma amino betric acid inhibitor, meaning it blocks the brains 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:17.520 GABBA receptors. This causes convulsions. Food jone occurs naturally in 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:20.280 a lot of different foods, but never in doses that 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:23.960 are high enough to hurt you, and this includes absinthe. 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:27.360 Even with the variation in its alcohol levels, by the 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:31.119 time the drink is distilled, there's barely any food jone left. 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:34.560 There are different chemotypes of food jone two, and not 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:38.440 all of them have the same toxicological effects. And furthermore, 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:41.880 any effects felt under the influence of absinthe were in 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:46.360 conjunction with the intoxicating depressant of the ethanol that's also 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:51.000 in the drink. Examination of historic absinthe products has determined 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:53.320 that they actually had about the same food jone in 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:57.760 them as today's maximum limits will allow, meaning they weren't 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:02.520 toxic but did absent to make people hallucinate. It's unlikely, 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:05.200 but if it did, it was probably caused by the 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:09.000 ethanol content and not the thoo jone in the wormwood. 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:13.280 The absentthe available today in Europe has less ethanol and 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:17.320 a legal food jone content a thirty five milligrams per leader. 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:22.080 Most brands have the same ingredients and extracts as absinthe 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:25.520 from before the band they simply monitor the thoo jone. 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:29.320 Since two thousand seven, modern absinthe can only be sold 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:32.440 in the United States if it's through jone free. If 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:35.360 it has wormwood in it, the f d A considers 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:39.400 it adulterated. But honestly, you could probably get away with 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.040 bringing a bottle or two into the country in your suitcase. 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:44.960 And if you're looking to hallucinate with the Green Fairy, 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.400 there is no evidence that absinthe, even with high doses 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:52.000 of thoo jone, will get you there. Frankly, you'd probably 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:55.520 die from alcohol poisoning well before you felt any effects 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:59.080 from the thoo jone. It's possible that the constituents in 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:03.960 wormwood or other absent ingredients may cause health problems, but 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:07.720 so far there is no evidence. So don't let advertisements 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:11.640 fool you that absinthe will have any psychotropic effects. That's 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:15.880 just marketing trying to cash in on the beverage's past reputation. Oh, 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:19.480 and for the record, when John Lanfrey killed his family, 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:22.200 he had a lot more to drink than absent. He 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:26.440 also had about thirteen glasses of wine, six cognacs, two 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:34.280 copies full of brandy, and a Creme de men. Check 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:36.360 out the brain Stuff channel on YouTube, and for more 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:38.959 on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:53.360 works dot com.