Boozy Book Review: The Absinthe Forger by Evan Rail
The history of absinthe is filled with drama. The spirit was created as a medicine but was adopted recreationally, particularly in France in the late 1800s. It became more popular than it might have been otherwise, due to the phylloxera infestation that destroyed vineyards and made wine much more expensive in comparison. But when the wine industry began to recover, an anti-absinthe smear campaign began.
Degas' The Absinthe Drinkers
Absinthe is much higher in ABV than wine of course (even though it is designed to be consumed diluted), and its sudden adoption by French drinkers may have brought to light societal problems including rampant alcoholism. The spirit was said to be poison, and anti-absinthe crusaders put on public demonstrations of its supposed toxicity by injecting animals with lethal doses of wormwood oil. A sensationalized murder in Switzerland, supposedly fueled by absinthe, was the last straw, and absinthe was banned in several countries in the early 1900s. It remained banned for nearly 100 years.
That history has been covered in many books at this point, and in The Absinthe Forger: A True Story of Deception, Betrayal, and the World’s Most Dangerous Spirit, (October 15, Melville House) author Evan Rail doesn’t merely repeat it (though he does fill in lots of small, new-to-me details). Instead, most of the book takes place after absinthe becomes legal again.
Meet the Fans and Forger
Art Nouveau absinthe poster
Due in large part to its salacious history, absinthe inspires a morbid curiosity in people, and communities of collectors have built up around it. Some enthusiasts collect vintage absinthe advertisements; others collect absinthe spoons and fountains and other implements. And some others collect bottles of vintage absinthe to taste, with a particular emphasis on bottles produced before bans went into place around 1910.
It is in the modern world of “pre-ban” absinthe collectors that the book begins. It turns out a trusted absinthe expert who lived in London had been recreating the flavor profile (and the color) of pre-ban absinthe, putting it into vintage bottles, and passing it off as legitimate (and very expensive) bottlings.
It was fellow collectors who became suspicious of all the newly-“found” pre-ban absinthe on the market and started investigating. They identified the fraudster and eventually blew his cover. The Absinthe Forger follows the trail of experts who had tasted enough vintage absinthe to detect something wrong with these bottles, and their homespun investigations into the person committing the forgeries. To accomplish this, other collectors had to figure out how absinthe was originally distilled, colored, and blended by different producers in France, Switzerland, and Spain, how the flavor changes over the decades in the bottle, and how every brand made its bottles, labels, and wax/cork seals. You’ve got to know a lot about the authentic product to catch a fake.
Author Evan Rail by photographer David Surowiecki
Rail takes us to Italy, France, Switzerland, London, and the Czech Republic among other places as he travels to meet this cast of collectors and sleuths, from distillers to museum curators to dealers in liquid history. He visits towns where absinthe was distilled in mass quantities in its heyday and in much smaller quantities illegally during its prohibition. (This was an exciting part of history with bootleggers and decoy vessels and secret distilleries I’d not heard of previously.) We learn of famous found caches of absinthe such as in old hotel wine cellars, and how people who sold these caches had to both keep their sources secret while also verifying the liquid’s authenticity.
I enjoyed the careful pacing of the book: We learn along with the author who produced pre-ban absinthe in different styles; where and why lost caches turn up for sale at auction; how one person had enough expertise in rare bottles to be able to create fake absinthe (and how others learned enough to detect it); and how all the individual components sourced from all over Europe ended up in the final forged blends. Rail does a great job at building the story and following the trail, piece by piece.
The Impact
A theme that appears throughout the book is betrayal. The forger is not an anonymous seller of absinthe but a trusted expert who many of the players (thought they) knew well. He had been interacting with the rest of the collecting community on bulletin boards and Facebook groups and auction sites, and in private communications with other community members – all people that he later scammed – for many years. Was his motivation purely financial, or was there some dark psychological need to trick people?
As Rail traces the mystery, he introduces us to collectors he met via other collectors, and we soon get a sense of the wide community made of amateurs and professionals across Europe with a common interest in absinthe. Then when the fraud is exposed, we see additional rumors and accusations fly, trust destroyed, and various online absinthe groups fall apart. Beyond the hurt caused to individuals, the forger broke apart a community.
If You Like This
Rail mentions a few parallels of fakers in the wine world, such as the story that was made into the book The Billionaire’s Vinegar. There are also parallels (less forgery, more about finding lost caches) in Aaron Goldfarb’s recent book Dusty Booze, reviewed here on AlcoholProfessor.com.
One thing that differentiates The Absinthe Forger from these other works is that the author was actually able to taste a lot of the vintage absinthe as he met collectors and they shared their bounties with him. Rail, in turn, shares his tasting notes with us, and this made me extremely curious at times. Do I want to hunt down and try vintage absinthe, or is it worth the risk of getting a fake? Who can you trust after all?