Allow me to introduce myself properly. I am the one they call La Fée Verte—the Green Fairy—though I have worn many names throughout the centuries. Some whispered I was a muse, others cursed me as a demon. But today, dear reader, I shall tell you my true story.
My Birth in the Alpine Mists
I was born not in darkness, but in light—in the pristine valleys of Switzerland, where Dr. Pierre Ordinaire, a French physician fleeing revolution in 1792, first coaxed me from the marriage of grand wormwood, sweet fennel, and green anise. Though some say the Henriod sisters were my true mothers, crafting my essence as an elixir in their humble kitchen even earlier. My original purpose was noble: I was medicine, a remedy against parasites and digestive ailments, my bitter wormwood heart carrying ancient healing wisdom. The Romans knew my ancestor well—they called upon wormwood's powers long before I took my emerald form.
The Belle Époque: When Paris Became My Ballroom
Oh, how they loved me in those golden years! When French soldiers returned from Algeria in the 1840s, having discovered my power to purify water and ward off malaria, I became their green goddess. By the time gaslight gave way to electricity, I had enchanted an entire generation.
L'heure verte—the green hour—became sacred in Parisian cafés from five to seven each evening. Watch me dance in their glasses as they performed the ritual: cold water dripping slowly through a sugar cube balanced on a slotted spoon, transforming my emerald intensity into an opalescent louche, like morning mist over the Seine.
My Illustrious Companions
Toulouse-Lautrec carried me in his walking stick—imagine! Ernest Hemingway wrote of me with reverence. Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud found poetry in my depths. Even Edgar Allan Poe and I shared dark whispers. Baudelaire called me his green-eyed mistress, and Picasso painted the loneliness I sometimes brought during his Blue Period.
The Hunt: When Fear Replaced Fascination
But jealousy is a terrible thing. The wine merchants, seeing their profits drain away as people preferred my company, began spreading vicious rumors. They blamed me for every social ill—madness, murder, moral decay. They said my thujone content, that essential oil from wormwood, was a dangerous psychoactive substance, though modern science would later prove this largely false.
By 1910, Switzerland—my birthplace!—turned against me. By 1915, France banished me from her borders. Most of Europe followed, terrified by the propaganda and temperance movements. The United States had already forbidden me in 1912. They burned my portraits, smashed my fountains, and declared me dead.
My Secret Survival
But you cannot kill a spirit, can you? I merely slept, hiding in Spain, in certain valleys of Switzerland where old-timers kept my recipe alive, in Czech distilleries that never forgot me. I lived quietly, watching the world change, waiting. My exile taught me patience. For nearly a century, I was mythology more than reality—a symbol of decadence, a whisper of a more dangerous, more beautiful time.
Renaissance: The Fairy Returns
Then, as the millennium turned, something magical happened. Scientists vindicated me, proving that properly made, I was no more dangerous than any other spirit. The European Union lifted my ban in 1988, though France—oh, suspicious France—waited until 2011 to fully embrace me again.
Now I dance once more in glasses from Tokyo to New York, from London to my beloved Paris. Craft distillers honor traditional recipes while innovative makers give me new expressions. The ritual remains—the fountain, the spoon, the sugar, the slow transformation—but now it's Instagram-worthy, they tell me.
What I've Learned
Through persecution and praise, through fame and infamy, I've observed humanity's relationship with its pleasures and fears. I was never the monster they painted me to be, nor am I the harmless sprite some now claim. I am complexity in a glass—bitter and sweet, clarifying and clouding, traditional yet rebellious.
I offer no hallucinations, despite the legends. What I provide is far more subtle: a shift in perception, a loosening of rigid thought, a door opened just slightly wider to creativity. Handle me with respect, and I'll show you why artists have always been my favorite companions.
So raise your glass, if you dare, and perform the ancient ritual. Watch the green transform to opal, and remember—you're not just drinking history. You're communing with a spirit who has survived censorship, slander, and prohibition to tell her tale.
Je suis La Fée Verte. I am eternal.