Absinthe Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
59 free Absinthe trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This absinthe trivia quiz covers the green fairy from its birth as a Swiss patent remedy to its 21st-century revival. The easy questions are the ones any cocktail fan should get: what colour it traditionally is, the plant that defines it, its French nickname, and the milky cloud that forms when you add water. Then it gets more demanding: Dr Ordinaire and the Henriod sisters of Couvet, the Pernod distillery at Pontarlier, the French troops in Algeria, the green hour of Paris cafés, the 36 million litres France drank in 1910, the Lanfray murders and the Swiss referendum, the countries that banned it and the ones that never did, the copper salts and antimony that made cheap absinthe genuinely poisonous, thujone and the THC myth, the EU limit, the Bohemian fire ritual, Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon, Degas and Manet, and the year France finally repealed its ban. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on absinthe, thujone, wormwood and Pernod Ricard before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our cocktails, beverages and Paris quizzes next.
30 of 59 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01To which plant family does grand wormwood belong?
Asteraceae
Asteraceae, the daisy family, includes the genus Artemisia, so grand wormwood is a relative of the sunflower, the chrysanthemum and tarragon.
Q 02What is absinthe's famous French nickname?
La fée verte
La fée verte, the green fairy, was the affectionate nickname for the emerald-coloured drink in 19th-century France; it is a spirit rather than a liqueur because it is not bottled with added sweetener.
Q 03What is the typical alcohol strength of absinthe?
45-74% ABV
45-74% ABV is the usual range for absinthe, well above most spirits, which is why it is traditionally diluted with iced water before drinking; a few modern bottlings approach 90%.
Q 04Absinthe was created in the late 18th century in which Swiss canton?
Neuchâtel
Neuchâtel is the canton containing Couvet and the Val-de-Travers, where the drink emerged around 1792 as a bitter medicinal elixir before crossing into neighbouring France.
Q 05Which sisters of Couvet sold the early recipe as a medicinal elixir?
The Henriods
The Henriods, sisters in Couvet, sold the bitter elixir as a cure-all; by some accounts they were distilling it before the village doctor usually credited with the recipe even arrived.
Q 06In which French town did Henry-Louis Pernod and Major Dubied open a second absinthe distillery in 1805?
Pontarlier
Pontarlier, just across the French border in the Doubs, got the 1805 distillery after the 1797 Couvet works proved too small, and the town became the capital of absinthe production.
Q 07Absinthe surged in the 1840s after French troops in which colony got it as a malaria preventive?
Algeria
Algeria: French soldiers campaigning there in the 1840s were issued absinthe to ward off malaria and dysentery, and they brought the taste home with them.
Q 08By the 1860s, 5 pm in French cafés had acquired what nickname?
L'heure verte
L'heure verte, the green hour, was the name given to the 5 pm aperitif ritual by the 1860s, when cafés from the boulevards to the working districts filled with absinthe drinkers.
Q 09How many litres of absinthe were the French drinking per year by 1910?
36 million
36 million litres a year by 1910, up from about 700,000 litres in 1874, after 1880s mass production pushed the price below that of wine.
Q 10Which US city is credited as the birthplace of the Sazerac, perhaps the earliest absinthe cocktail?
New Orleans
New Orleans gave the world the Sazerac, a cognac and later rye cocktail served in an absinthe-rinsed glass, and its Old Absinthe House on Bourbon Street drew patrons such as Mark Twain and Frank Sinatra.
Q 11Which 1905 crime by a Swiss farmer became the tipping point for banning absinthe?
Jean Lanfray murdered his wife and children
Jean Lanfray murdered his wife and children at Commugny in August 1905 after a day of heavy wine and brandy drinking, yet blame fell on his two glasses of absinthe, and 82,000 people signed a petition for a ban.
Q 12How was the 1908 Swiss prohibition of absinthe enacted?
By referendum, written into the constitution
The constitutional ban was repealed in 2000 and absinthe became legal again on 1 March 2005.
Q 13Which territory banned absinthe as early as 1898, before any European country?
Q 21In which year did France finally repeal its absinthe ban?
2011
2011: a law repealing the 1915 prohibition was published in May 2011 after a Senate vote that April, ending almost a century of a ban that a 1988 decree had only loosened.
Q 22Which Swiss village in the Val-de-Travers is home to the national Maison de l'Absinthe museum?
Môtiers
Môtiers, a few kilometres from Couvet, opened the Maison de l'Absinthe in 2014 in the former district courthouse where clandestine distillers had once been prosecuted.
Q 23Which country's law defines absinthe as a spirit that must be distilled?
Switzerland
Switzerland defined absinthe in law when its ban ended: the spirit must be distilled rather than cold-mixed and, if coloured, coloured naturally, whereas other markets set no quality standard for the name.
The Congo Free State
The Congo Free State, Leopold II's personal colony, prohibited absinthe in 1898, well before the wave of European bans of the following two decades.
Q 14In which year did the United States ban absinthe?
1912
1912: the US Department of Agriculture's Food Inspection Decision 147 banned absinthe that year, two years before France; the UK never formally banned it.
Q 15The French ban on absinthe led directly to the popularity of which anise-flavoured substitute?
Pastis
Pastis, an aniseed-and-liquorice spirit containing no wormwood, filled the gap left by the French ban and, with Paul Ricard's 1932 version, became the national aperitif.
Q 16Which two countries never banned absinthe, so production there never ceased?
Spain and Portugal
Spain and Portugal never outlawed the drink, so Iberian distilleries kept working through the ban years, and one famous French brand moved its production to Spain between the wars.
Q 17What did clandestine Swiss distillers call the colourless absinthe they made to hide it from authorities?
La Bleue
La Bleue, named for the faint blue tint the clear spirit takes when water is added, was distilled in secret in the Val-de-Travers during the ban, and the name later attached to Swiss-style clear absinthe generally.
Q 18Hill's Absinth, imported by BBH Spirits in the 1990s to spark the modern revival, came from where?
The Czech Republic
The Czech Republic: Hill's Liquere of Jindřichův Hradec made the Bohemian-style absinth that BBH Spirits began importing into Britain in 1998, where no ban had ever been enacted.
Q 19Which brand in 2000 became the first commercial spirit of its kind distilled in France since the 1914 ban?
La Fée
La Fée, created in 2000 with the Musée de l'Absinthe in Auvers-sur-Oise, was the first absinthe commercially distilled in France since the ban, and dozens of French brands followed.
Q 20Which brand in 2007 became the first genuine absinthe approved for US import since the ban?
Lucid
Lucid, distilled at the Combier distillery in Saumur for an American company, won federal approval in March 2007; St. George Spirits of California then made the first US-produced absinthe that December.
Q 24Traditional absinthe gets its green colour from what?
Chlorophyll from a second herb maceration
Chlorophyll from a second herb maceration: after distillation the clear spirit is steeped with a fresh charge of green herbs, whose chlorophyll lends the classic green, which is why traditional bottles were kept away from light.
Q 25Unscrupulous 19th-century makers tinted cheap absinthe green with what toxic substance?
Copper salts
Copper salts gave cheap absinthe an artificial green, and some makers added antimony trichloride to thicken the cloud that forms when water is added, which may explain much of the drink's toxic reputation.
Q 26What is the milky opalescence that forms when water is added to absinthe called?
The louche
The louche is the cloudy opalescence produced as water drops the alcohol strength and the essential oils of the botanicals, insoluble in weak alcohol, come out of solution.
Q 27In the traditional French preparation, what sits on the slotted spoon over the glass?
A sugar cube
A sugar cube rests on the perforated spoon while iced water drips through it, sweetening the drink and dissolving into the glass as it clouds; the ritual developed in 19th-century cafés.
Q 28In the French method, roughly how much iced water is dripped in?
3-5 parts to 1 of spirit
3-5 parts to 1 of spirit is the classic dilution, bringing a 68% absinthe down to roughly the strength of wine and letting the cloud develop slowly; patrons mixed their own at the café table.
Q 29The 'Bohemian method' of serving absinthe involves what?
Setting a sugar cube alight
Setting a sugar cube alight: the absinthe-soaked cube burns on the spoon before water is added, a 1990s marketing invention that connoisseurs dismiss as a fire-hazard gimmick that scorches the spirit.
Q 30What was an absinthe fountain?
An iced-water jar with spigots for several drinks
An iced-water jar with spigots for several drinks, usually four, let a table of patrons drip water into their glasses at once without anyone holding a carafe.