“No other spirit has so much mystery”: Evan Rail on absinthe’s Czech links and more
Evan Rail’s The Absinthe Forger is a true crime story that also explores the fascinating history of the spirit itself. Central to the new book is the absinthe produced before the “evil drink” was banned virtually everywhere in the early 20th century – only to make a comeback in the 1990s, a revival in which Czechia played a major part. Rail, a long-time resident of Prague, discussed that aspect of the story, and much more, at our studios in Vinohrady.
Your book is a true crime story about a man selling fake pre-1915 absinthe to enthusiasts. It’s also a story about absinthe itself. What was the starting point for the book?
“The starting point for the book was when I was contacted by a Czech absinthe fan or, as the locals call themselves, absintheur – people who like absinthe call themselves absintheurs.
“He wrote to me because he wanted me to write an article about a forger who had ripped off a bunch of his friends.
“I didn’t have room for the article at the time but I came back to it and I started researching the forger, the counterfeiter, for the article I was due to write – and I realised there was much more to this story that I couldn’t include in a short article.”
Why was this guy selling pre-ban absinthe, meaning from before 1915? Why is that particularly valued?
“Well, absinthe is a special spirit. People love whiskey, people love rum, people collect tequilas and mescal.
“But there is no spirit in the world that has been banned almost everywhere around the planet for almost a century. There’s no other spirit in the world that has been treated so badly and maligned and talked about as an evil drink, a drink that causes crime.
“As well, there’s no other spirit in the world with so much mystery and romance around it. Because of the ban that came about, there’s this kind of breaking point between the earlier period of absinthe, before the ban, and the modern day.
“There is no spirit in the world that has been banned almost everywhere around the planet for almost a century.”
“And those collectible bottles from before the ban took virtually all absinthe off the market are really sought out by people who want to know what absinthe truly tasted like.
“Because remember for most of us there was no absinthe at all. There was only pre-ban absinthe and there was almost no other absinthe being produced in the world at the time. Except in one country.”
Which was?
“Yes, the Czech Republic.”
Why was it an exception here, do you know?
“Absinthe was banned almost everywhere around the world leading up to World War I and in the aftermath of World War I.
“And I guess Czechoslovakia, having quite a few things to deal with in the First Republic and the earliest years of its founding, after 1918, probably had a lot of other things that it was busy with [laughs] and it never got around to banning absinthe.
“So absinthe was never banned here in the First Republic of Czechoslovakia. I don’t believe it was banned under the Communists, in communist Czechoslovakia.
“And after the Velvet Revolution absinthe was legal here, so people started to produce it.”
But again about the pre-ban absinthe, one of the people you speak to in the book says that absinthe, unlike a fine wine, doesn’t improve with age. Why are people prepared to spend thousands upon thousands of euros to try and obtain some?
“I guess Czechoslovakia, having quite a few things to deal with in the First Republic, never got around to banning absinthe.”
“I think it has to do with that sense of romance and mystery. And also the fact that you can connect to the famous drinkers of absinthe. Unlike a lot of other spirits, absinthe had proponents who kind of were at the hierarchy of culture in our civilisation.
“People like Oscar Wilde wrote about absinthe. Poets like Baudelaire and Verlaine loved absinthe. You had impressionist painters, whose works are considered masterpieces, who were fuelled by absinthe.
“So when you open a pre-ban bottle, if you find one, you’re not just tasting something that’s tangentially connected to these famous cultural figures from a century ago – you’re actually tasting the same spirit that they tasted.
“You’re drinking the same spirit, possibly even the same batch, if not possibly even the same bottle that one of them might have held or opened or poured a drink from.”
And not all the collectors actually drink it, right? Some of them just buy it and keep it.
“Yes, people approach collecting historic absinthe in different ways. And for some people it’s a work of art on its own – closed, sealed, never to be opened.
“They talk about it as opening a historic bottle ruins it.”
You, though, have had pre-1915 absinthe. How was it?
“I’ve had it a few times, in a few different places. I’ve had examples that were absolutely 100-percent not counterfeited [laughs], I’m virtually certain of that, while there were counterfeit examples floating around.
“And I can tell you that it was exquisite. It was a remarkable beverage. It was one of the greatest drinking experiences of my life. The times that I’ve been able to taste it have all ranked as some of the most special drinking experiences I’ve ever had.
“But I have to say I don’t know exactly that it’s the spirit that is special, or my reverence for it – that is, what is special from drinking pre-ban absinthe might come from me, as well as from the bottle.”
Also, though, you are familiar with very high quality modern-day absinthe. How did the old stuff compare, just in terms of taste?
“Producers who make absinthe today have told me that absinthe today, young absinthe, is really wild. It’s sort of kicking and bucking, it’s got elbows and shoulders.
“But when you taste those historic spirits, they actually taste very civilised, very put together, very much in control. The tastes are harmonious, the aromas are like a symphony.
“And it doesn’t have a lot of wildness, it has a taste that seems compressed and whole.”
At the centre of your book is the story of the absinthe forger, this man selling fake old absinthe for large amounts of money to people who he meets through Facebook groups. They begin getting suspicious that he’s turning up so much of this stuff, which is unlikely. But still I was wondering, how much money could he ever have made? There was always going to be a limited market; even if he was bringing out more than was conceivably realistic, it was still going to be limited. You actually met him – what do think his motivations were?
“That was a big part of writing this book and researching this book and eventually coming back into contact with him.
“I met him originally many years ago at an absinthe festival and we were in contact over the years, before anyone knew that he was a forger.
“He was one of my friends on social media and we had DMs, private messages, several times, and we talked about collecting.
“What was his motivation is a question I’ve asked myself over and over again. And I think a big part of the book part of the book is trying to figure that out.
“I can tell you that people who knew him and who figured out his crime, his fraud, have various ideas about his motivation.
“And for a number of them it’s money. But a lot of them put it at something more psychological. That is, a lot of them credited it to his desire to be smarter than someone else, to show that he was smarter than someone else, to trick people.
“He did little things that were just sort of like a joke almost, like he wanted to be caught.
“He would send a sample of absinthe, of fake absinthe, to someone who made absinthe, to a distiller, who wanted to try it – and the absinthe that he was sending them would actually contain some of the distillers own absinthe in it.
“He was making his own forgeries, he was composing them by blending modern absinthes along with other flavourings and spirits and so forth.
“And sometimes he would actually send a distiller’s own spirit, mixed and blended with other things, back to that distiller, I think in order to say, Ha, ha, you can’t even taste well enough to recognise your own spirit.”
Absinthe had a kind of revival, I guess, in the 1990s and 2000s – it basically became available again on European markets. How did that happen?
“It happened because the Czech Republic never banned absinthe. So in the Naughty Nineties there Czech producers of absinthe, who were basically unknown here, putting out something called absinthe.
“At the end of 1998 and very early in 1999 Czech absinthe started showing up in the UK.”
“And a British importer, originally a British beer importer, realised that the Czechs were making absinthe and started looking into how he could import absinthe into the UK.
“There was something at the time in the EU, a reciprocity agreement, and the Czech Republic was a candidate country to join the EU, and at the time the UK was part of the EU, and what it meant was that something that was legally for sale in one country could be legally for sale in another: effectively, if it’s possible here, it’s possible there.
“The Czechs were already selling and distributing absinthe, so this importer argued that he should be able to import absinthe into the UK: from one EU candidate country to another EU country it was all the same thing.
“Legally he was right. It was allowed, surprisingly. At the end of 1998 and very early in 1999 Czech absinthe started showing up on bar shelves and at promotions and parties in the UK.
“It became a real buzz-worthy drink. People were really into it.
“It was new and yet it was old. It had been banned but it was available again. It was from France in the 19th century but it was also from this cool new country that everyone was in love with at the time.
“You started seeing it in movies. It shows up in, I think, Bram Stoker’s Dracula at the time, and other movies like that.
“So it had a lot of mystique around it and a lot of trendiness and it became popular.
“But I don’t think it ever became the next big thing. It just remained the next big thing [laughs] without ever claiming the title of being top of the pile.
“Today people drink a lot more mescal, whiskey, gin and vodka, and absinthe remains kind of a secondary, tertiary spirit on the market.”
I first came across absinthe in bars in Prague in the ‘90s. You’d see people doing this kind of ritual thing with a flame, sugar, spoons. You suggest in the book that this “tradition” is tenuous?
“Yes, it’s definitely not historic. There are many ways to drink absinthe, but the one where you light it on fire was definitely invented in the 1990s as a marketing ploy, as a way of something kind of interesting happen with absinthe when they were beginning to import it to the UK.
“The so-called ‘Bohemian method’ of serving absinthe is not really thought of as a great way to serve it.”
“It’s the so-called ‘Bohemian method’ of serving absinthe and generally speaking it’s garbage. It’s not really thought of as a great way to serve it.
“But there are many other ways to serve absinthe that are more historically accurate and probably more tasteful – and certainly less dangerous than lighting an alcoholic beverage on fire when you’re consuming alcohol.”
I think I tried absinthe in those days – possibly made by the brand you refer to in the book, called Hill’s, which was absinth without an E at the end – and it was rank. It was horrible. Should I feel like I’ve never actually had absinthe if I’ve only had that kind of stuff?
“The one that kicked off the whole absinthe revival, and there’s a huge amount of irony in this, was not a good example of what absinthe or was or can be.
“It was called Hill’s, it’s still on the market. It is a drink, but it’s not a drink that connoisseurs of absinthe would recommend. It’s generally looked down upon.
“Ironically, this bad, or not great, absinthe kicked off the revival that led to modern absinthes being legal again and being wonderfully high-quality again.
“But at the time it was not exactly the proper thing.”
But today Czechia is producing good quality absinthe, you say?
“Ironically, this bad absinthe kicked off the revival that led to modern absinthes being legal again.”
“Yes, there are a couple of producers who are absolutely top-shelf. One of them is Martin Žufánek, who has been making great absinthes for about a decade or more.
“His spirits are revered by collectors, I believe. I have a whole chapter about Martin Žufánek in my book, because he is a collector of historic spirits, he has many historic bottles, and he has produced reproductions of historical absinthe recipes going all the way back to the end of the 18th century.
“So Martin Žufánek’s spirits are very well received and delicious.
“And there’s another producer, Mr. Šlechta, who produces absinthes here in Prague. His brand name is Prince d’Absinthe.
“I haven’t been able to try his spirits, they are so recherché and rare and hard to get. But everyone says they are quite well-made and really delicious, so I’m looking forward to trying those soon.”
To digress for a second, you also refer to the fact that fake beer was sold in, or by rather, Czechoslovakia?
“Yes, there were several versions of fake beer. One of the first cases of beer fraud that I came across was Pilsner Urquell being sold in Bratislava that wasn’t Pilsner Urquell.
“Under communism the authorities would export other beers that were not Pilsner Urquell and sell it as Pilsner Urquell to unsuspecting customers in Western Europe.”
“Some other brand was being sold as the original pilsner in Bratislava and the brewery actually sued a bar owner in Bratislava. That was in the 1930s.
“But quite a few brewers have told me a story about how certain beers used to be sold abroad by the Communists as Pilsner Urquell, which was a very sought-after brand and is today – it’s considered a very good beer.
“But under communism the authorities would export other beers that were not Pilsner Urquell and sell it as Pilsner Urquell to unsuspecting customers in Western Europe.”
But surely if you had had ever had Pilsner Urquell and then they sold you [the beer concerned] Krušovice, you would notice the difference?
“I think most people would say that you would. But that actually is a testament to the quality of Krušovice in previous generations.
“The story is always told to me by Czech brewers, who say, Do you want to know something funny – 30 or 40 years ago Krušovice was so good it was a stand-in for Pilsner Urquell when people couldn’t get Pilsner Urquell – and was sold outside of the country as Pilsner Urquell?
“It had a much higher quality, or rather it had a different taste profile that was closer to the original pilsner than the one we have today.”
This reminds me, there was a technician who worked here at the Radio who told me one time in excited tones, You know my dad told me there was a pub in Prague where he swears they had really good Krušovice – honestly, it’s true.
“[Laughs] I’ve heard that story about other beers as well. People will talk about Staropramen, which is generally not considered a connoisseur’s beer, and they will tell you there are pubs that sell really, really good Staropramen.
“And that is true. This is an aspect of Czech drinking culture that I find very nuanced – that people will recognise that the quality of beer is not just from the brewery but also up to the pub.”
Finally, The Absinthe Forger is coming out in the middle of October. What are your hopes for the book? I’ve seen it listed as one of the crime books to watch out for this autumn.
“I just hope people will read it and learn to appreciate something about this wonderful romantic and mysterious spirit which is quite a rewarding drink.
“It’s very nuanced and it can be a delicious beverage. There’s a huge history there that has been fun for me to explore – and I think people will probably get a lot of learning about the history of this remarkable spirit.”
The Absinthe Forger: A True Story of Deception, Betrayal, and the World’s Most Dangerous Spirit, to give the book its full title, will be released by US publisher Melville House on October 15.
