Sensational stories from France of the deaths of famous authors and artists and mild men turned murderers from absinthe drinking regularly surfaced in American newspapers. What dealt the blow to absinthe in America, and portended doom for the Old Absinthe House, was a report from Dr Wiley, head of the Pure Food Board declaring absinthe to be ‘one of the worst enemies of man’ ( The Omaha Daily Bee December 15 1911.) From the late 19th century authorities in France had battled with the national enthusiasm for absinthe drinking. And it even survived the hurricane of 1915 with minimal damage. For despite all this adversity, in 1916 Aleister Crowley is to be found sitting in the Old Absinthe House musing on some literary project. The ‘old French Absinthe House is soon to be only a memory…closed by order of the government’ ( Bossier Banner November 14 1912.) On JanuThe Omaha Daily Bee gleefully crowed that ‘the national law prohibiting the importation of absinthe has put out of business the famous Absinthe House.’ The Washington Herald, more regretfully, also acknowledged its passing ( The Washington Herald February 21 1913.) But it was not dead yet. In whose hands, I cannot say, for in 1912 the journalistic crows once more gather in anticipation of the corpse. ‘The old Absinthe House…has gone into bankruptcy by petition of Felix Ferrer, the proprietor, by whose family it has been owned since 1826’ ( Alexandria Gazette October 31 1902.) Yet it survived. A disconcerting article appeared in newspapers in 1902. It was not the first time that the death knell had sounded for the Old Absinthe House. Ramos where you could get ‘a gin fizz…a goblet of sublimated whipped cream with a kick in it.’ And many had thought that the Old Absinthe House, with Absinthe the most hated of demon liquor, would be among the first to go. Yet somehow it was surviving as a soft drinks parlor ‘feebly bidding for trade on the strength of its wicked past’ ( New York Tribune Feb 8 1920.) Another scare from 1906. A few days later a New York journalist wrote that ‘the Vieux Carre is languishing to-day, dying slowly of inanition, of thirst.’ The Sazerac and the Gem were closed, as was the bar of Henry C. When Prohibition came on January 16th 1920, the game was up for many of the saloons in New Orleans.
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