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Speaker 1: from How Stuff Works. Hey there, kids, I'm Christian Sager
Speaker 1: and this is brain stuff. The one that is about
Speaker 1: the most powerful of liquors absinthe. So in a Swiss
Speaker 1: vineyard worker named John Lanfrey shot his pregnant wife and
Speaker 1: his two daughters. Then he tried to kill himself unsuccessfully.
Speaker 1: The public were absolutely outraged and blamed the whole thing
Speaker 1: on two glasses of absinthe that Lanfrey had consumed before
Speaker 1: his rampage. What is this beverage that could drive a
Speaker 1: man to such madness? How is it made? Does it
Speaker 1: actually make you hallucinate as some people claim? Well. Absinthe
Speaker 1: is an annis flavored alcoholic drink, and for a while
Speaker 1: there it was banned in the United States, Switzerland, and France.
Speaker 1: It tastes kind of like liquorice. People used to call
Speaker 1: it the green Fairy because it's green and supposedly it
Speaker 1: made its consumers see things like you know, fairies. The
Speaker 1: traditional recipe from before the band has a really high
Speaker 1: alcohol content anywhere from fifty five to seventy, so you're
Speaker 1: supposed to dilute it when you drink it, unless you've
Speaker 1: already started the day drinking paint thinner, that is absence
Speaker 1: made from anis phennel, a plant called wormwood, and a
Speaker 1: variety of other herbs and flowers. You soak all these
Speaker 1: ingredients in alcohol for anywhere from a day to a month.
Speaker 1: Then you distill the mixture, causing it to evaporate and
Speaker 1: leave behind bitter essences. You then recondense these with the
Speaker 1: alcohol as it cools and dilutes. Manufactures add more herbs
Speaker 1: later to give it the milky greenish color that it's
Speaker 1: known for. It gets it the roma from the wormwood,
Speaker 1: something like a mix of cinnamon and clothes. But don't
Speaker 1: go buying this stuff out of the trunk of a
Speaker 1: stranger's car. Falsified absinthe is typically made with industrial alcohol,
Speaker 1: food dye, antimony, and copper salts. With that combination, you
Speaker 1: might as well just stick with the paint thinner. But
Speaker 1: the vintage absinthe from before the band that stuff can
Speaker 1: go for as much as five hundred dollars for three
Speaker 1: ounce vial, or ten thousand dollars for an entire bottle.
Speaker 1: Wormwood has been used medicinally since fifteen fifty two BC
Speaker 1: in Egypt. It's bitter taste is so old it's actually
Speaker 1: mentioned in the Bible as a representation of injustice. It
Speaker 1: was used as a general remedy for disease in the
Speaker 1: Middle Ages, and get this, Mothers used to apply it
Speaker 1: to their nipples to wean their babies off of breast milk.
Speaker 1: In the eighteenth century, a French physician is rumored to
Speaker 1: have developed the absinthe recipe with wormwood. This recipe was
Speaker 1: first commercially produced in seventeen seven by Henri Louis Pernode,
Speaker 1: and a century later it was incredibly popular because a
Speaker 1: vine pest had made wine less available and people needed
Speaker 1: to get their drink on. Simultaneously, an anti alcohol movement
Speaker 1: was growing, called for by both doctors, the clergy and
Speaker 1: the wine growers who wanted their industry back. The growers
Speaker 1: started a misinformation campaign linking absinthe to hallucinations, seizures, suicides,
Speaker 1: and murders like those committed by Lanfrey. They even produced
Speaker 1: posters denouncing addiction to the drink as absinthe is m
Speaker 1: Recent studies however, have shown that if there was a
Speaker 1: real problem, it was actually widespread alcoholism that was to blame. Remember,
Speaker 1: absinthe has an incredibly high concentration of alcohol in it,
Speaker 1: and at the time it was one the most highly
Speaker 1: consumed drinks in France, so the two went hand in hand.
Speaker 1: But the scientists of the time, perhaps misguided by absintheism propaganda,
Speaker 1: missed this inter relationship. Instead, they performed experiments on animals
Speaker 1: to prove that wormwood was at fault, and rather than
Speaker 1: use absinthe in their tests, they use essence to absinthe,
Speaker 1: which is essentially pure wormwood oil. They shut guinea pigs
Speaker 1: up with saucers of absinthe and alcohol, testing the effects
Speaker 1: as the animals huffed in the fumes. They even made
Speaker 1: lesions in the brains and spinal cords of cats so
Speaker 1: they could administer wormwood directly. Guess what, When you cut
Speaker 1: up a cat and rub wormwood oil on its bare brain,
Speaker 1: it has seizures. Seeing this as a confirmation of their hypotheses,
Speaker 1: their results were assumed to have the same effect on
Speaker 1: the humans who drank commercial absinthe. Now here's the thing.
Speaker 1: There's a component in wormwood called fo jone that in
Speaker 1: high doses can be toxic. We used to think that
Speaker 1: it suppressed neurotransmitters in the brain, but it's actually a
Speaker 1: gamma amino betric acid inhibitor, meaning it blocks the brains
Speaker 1: GABBA receptors. This causes convulsions. Food jone occurs naturally in
Speaker 1: a lot of different foods, but never in doses that
Speaker 1: are high enough to hurt you, and this includes absinthe.
Speaker 1: Even with the variation in its alcohol levels, by the
Speaker 1: time the drink is distilled, there's barely any food jone left.
Speaker 1: There are different chemotypes of food jone two, and not
Speaker 1: all of them have the same toxicological effects. And furthermore,
Speaker 1: any effects felt under the influence of absinthe were in
Speaker 1: conjunction with the intoxicating depressant of the ethanol that's also
Speaker 1: in the drink. Examination of historic absinthe products has determined
Speaker 1: that they actually had about the same food jone in
Speaker 1: them as today's maximum limits will allow, meaning they weren't
Speaker 1: toxic but did absent to make people hallucinate. It's unlikely,
Speaker 1: but if it did, it was probably caused by the
Speaker 1: ethanol content and not the thoo jone in the wormwood.
Speaker 1: The absentthe available today in Europe has less ethanol and
Speaker 1: a legal food jone content a thirty five milligrams per leader.
Speaker 1: Most brands have the same ingredients and extracts as absinthe
Speaker 1: from before the band they simply monitor the thoo jone.
Speaker 1: Since two thousand seven, modern absinthe can only be sold
Speaker 1: in the United States if it's through jone free. If
Speaker 1: it has wormwood in it, the f d A considers
Speaker 1: it adulterated. But honestly, you could probably get away with
Speaker 1: bringing a bottle or two into the country in your suitcase.
Speaker 1: And if you're looking to hallucinate with the Green Fairy,
Speaker 1: there is no evidence that absinthe, even with high doses
Speaker 1: of thoo jone, will get you there. Frankly, you'd probably
Speaker 1: die from alcohol poisoning well before you felt any effects
Speaker 1: from the thoo jone. It's possible that the constituents in
Speaker 1: wormwood or other absent ingredients may cause health problems, but
Speaker 1: so far there is no evidence. So don't let advertisements
Speaker 1: fool you that absinthe will have any psychotropic effects. That's
Speaker 1: just marketing trying to cash in on the beverage's past reputation. Oh,
Speaker 1: and for the record, when John Lanfrey killed his family,
Speaker 1: he had a lot more to drink than absent. He
Speaker 1: also had about thirteen glasses of wine, six cognacs, two
Speaker 1: copies full of brandy, and a Creme de men. Check
Speaker 1: out the brain Stuff channel on YouTube, and for more
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