La Fée brand is French for Fairy, ‘La’ indicating feminine, which you may notice her within the La Fée eye. Absinthe historically is referenced as female and was sometimes depicted as a fairy, spirit or wrath… La Fée Parisienne is distilled by a Paris-based distiller using copper stills in the classic way with its flavour centred around grand wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) and balanced with petti wormwood, green and star anis. These serve to subdue the weight and extreme bitterness of the wormwood and this balance of flavours is typical of a traditional pre ban French Absinthe, as is its 68% abv. Other herbs are used to delicately rain in the dominant wormwood including hyssop and in La Fée’s case an expensive herb found high-up in the Swiss Alps which Madame Delayahe insisted upon and I am told is often missed by many lesser products. Its identity remains under wraps.

ever conscientious, George set upon a program to limit release to carefully selected bars who had received appropriate staff training. Despite this the reaction was predictable and the reopening of the absinthe market was questioned in The House of Lords. Many County Councils mistakenly pulled the product from bars only to find themselves being presented with copies of the original EU certificate which vouched for Legally cleared to import and sell Czech Absinth, George and John Moore accompanied by Radomir, their indispensible translator and guide headed for the Hill’s Liguere distillery to negotiate a contract with the distiller, Radomil Hill, and his daughter. Custom demanded that every contract term agreed was toasted.

We had already come across John’s name during our own research while reading an article he had written in an early edition of The Idler. At the time absinth was only available in a few Prague bars, and if any other source existed in Prague or the rest of Bohemia, its profile was low to the point of invisibility. Although I had been working and playing in Prague since 1993, I had not come across any noticeable presence of absinth while I was there. A distillery was found that was prepared to work with Madame Delayahe and George, one which had an original working still that had been used for absinthe before the ban. Many test distillations later and La Fée Absinthe was created – in the words of Marie-Claude Delahaye, “the first Traditional French Absinthe to be commercially produced in France since the ban of 1915”. In conclusion, shovel shaped absinthe spoons probably made a slow appearance towards 1880 or maybe slightly before when absinthe was expanding. One day, a creative type thought that dissolving sugar on a normal spoon and then tipping it into the glass wasn’t very practical, so had the idea to drill holes. Spending entire days carrying out research in libraries, Marie-Claude became an absinthe historian with the publication of her first book in 1983; ‘Absinthe – History of the Green Fairy’. The original edition of this book is now out of print and has become a collector’s item throughout the world. His hope was that, in the case of France, that the French ban prohibited only the sale, but not the production of absinthe. So started his search to find a traditional recipe and a distillery to make it – preferably one that had made absinthe prior to 1915.

There is one last stage before we are ready to bottle La Fée: A sample is couriered to Marie-Claude Delahaye (in Paris) and also to George Rowley, who test each batch, using their extensive experience of tasting Absinthe and also their knowledge of the original master recipe. George was also directly involved in lifting of the ban imposed in Italy following the referendum of 1932. Working with Vellier, a local distributor based inGenoa, it became clear that when Italy joined the EU and signed the Maastricht Treaty, it had, like France, failed to register its Absinthe ban, effectively rendering it null and void. Jeremy Paxman of BBC2’s Newsnight as he reviewed the next day’s papers at the end of the programme. The following morning George received a call from the BBC asking if he could demonstrate the absinth-burning ritual for Newsnight that evening. French government issue absinthe to soldiers in North Africa, to ward off disease. Returning troops contributed to making the drink popular in the cafes. 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.

The origin of absinthe’s name, like its origin itself is both unclear and a matter of conjecture but it is thought to derive from the Greek word “apsinthion” meaning either “wormwood” or “undrinkable” (presumably due to its bitter taste).