The first mentions
Artemisia has been used as a remedy since antiquity; its first medical record dates from the sixteenth century BC.
Swiss cultural heritage
The history of absinthe
Born in the misty valleys of the Swiss Jura at the end of the eighteenth century, absinthe is far more than a spirit — it is a cultural phenomenon that shaped art, literature and the very idea of bohemian creativity. From its origins as a medicinal elixir to its rise as the drink of choice for the painters and writers of Paris, the Green Fairy has always stood apart.
From antiquity to the present day
The years of glory
In the nineteenth century it was drunk across every layer of society.
The ban
Prohibited in Switzerland in 1910 after a series of scandals, and legal again from 2005.
The clandestine century
Ninety-five years out of sight
Absinthe was constitutionally prohibited in Switzerland in 1910, and in France on 16 March 1915. The bans owed far more to political, economic and social pressure than to conclusive scientific evidence: the association between absinthe and hallucination belongs to an early twentieth-century moral panic, and chemical analysis of historical bottles has since shown thujone levels that were low, and comparable to modern regulated production.
Prohibition did not end absinthe in Val-de-Travers — it moved it out of sight. Production continued clandestinely here for ninety-five years, and those who were caught were tried in the very building this museum now occupies. That is why the valley never lost the craft: expertise was passed on without interruption, and refining it in secrecy pushed it towards precision and balance. Absinthe blanche, emblematic of the region to this day, comes out of those years.
Switzerland lifted the ban on 1 March 2005.
Prohibition did not end absinthe in Val-de-Travers — it moved it out of sight. Production continued clandestinely here for ninety-five years, and those who were caught were tried in the very building this museum now occupies. That is why the valley never lost the craft: expertise was passed on without interruption, and refining it in secrecy pushed it towards precision and balance. Absinthe blanche, emblematic of the region to this day, comes out of those years.
Switzerland lifted the ban on 1 March 2005.
From absinthe to the Maison
Why this history needed a place
In 2004, local authorities and tourism leaders in Val-de-Travers began looking for a way to reclaim a heritage that had long defined the identity of the region. What the Route de l'Absinthe then revealed was the piece still missing: a cultural anchor.