Parisienne is distilled at the traditional 68% abv following an authentic 19th century recipe and louches perfectly when water is added.

Suited and booted, with Radomir (my local assistant and translator) I approached what we considered, after much tasting and travelling throughout the country, to be the best of the independent brands and breweries. We had something revolutionary to offer these local enterprises across the Czech Republic: access to the UK, one of Europe’s key markets. Within six months we had signed up three good breweries, producing such beers as Lobkowicz, Rebel and our first spirit, the Czech national liqueur, (Becherovka, now, coincidentally, owned by Pernod Ricard.)All these accounts clearly demonstrate how inextricably absinthe became entwined with the culture of France, her capital, communities and colonies, far off New Orleans, and less obviously with Switzerland. Equally clear is that all these are historical accounts, describing the world of absinthe as it was before various bans were imposed against it more than a hundred years ago. This starts with colour (soft green with a hint of yellow), then adding water to establish the depth of louche. Then taste and aroma of the botanicals that are released by the drop in abv through dilution to drinking strength (12% to 16%abv). In the event any aspect is not to our exacting standards, the distillery is advised of any fine-tuning required, a rare event as our experience has grown since our returning the distilling of traditional absinthe to France over a decade ago (May 2000). La Fée Absinthe Parisienne was first distilled in July 2000 [1] in association with the Musée de l’Absinthe, Auvers-sur-Oise, France, and its founder and curator, Marie-Claude Delahaye, who is also a Director of La Fée LLP. [2] It was the first absinthe to be legally distilled and bottled in France since the 1915 ban. It is distilled in copper stills at the Cherry Rocher distillery in the Rhône-Alpes region of south-east France and contains nine different herbs and spices, including Artemisia absinthium (Grande Wormwood) and Artemisia pontica (Petite Wormwood). It is bottled at 68% ABV: The traditional strength for French absinthe was 68% ABV - 72% ABV. Whether chaperoning the World Bank, which was financing industrial operations on a grand scale for the first time in a former eastern bloc country, or a British supermarket seeking presence in the Czech market: I was conscious of the gap, not only between the then Soviet mentality and the western approach to business, but also to the potential impact of, and importance to our clients of local cultural differences. During its acquisition of the K-Mart operation in the Czech Republic, the Tesco due diligence team, for example, was most astonished to see Carp (the traditional Christmas Eve dish here) being sold live in store and then often being kept in domestic bathtubs for several days to purge them of the muddy taste characteristic of bottom-feeders. Another important distinction was the lower percentage of supermarket floor space around 30% – allocated to food retailing. Tesco is moving substantially towards that ratio in the UK (though live carp is still conspicuous by its absence) and it will be interesting to see how the company handles its current move into the USA, a market which La Fėe too is entering.

Absinthe was born in Couvet, Switzerland at the end of the 18th century as a digestive centered around the medicinal plant wormwood - artemisia absinthium, the herb absinthe takes its name.It was widely propagated that absinthe’s principal ingredient, wormwood, had hallucinogenic properties, which made you do irrational, impulsive things. Nonsense, of course, but that disparaging one-liner remains in hearts and minds, even today. In reality, absinthe was merely a contributor to the alcoholism that pervaded Europe at the time. April 1998 Rowley applied EU directive for spirits crafting the legal status absinthe uses to this day. La Fée is the only Brand to have the endorsement and direct involvement of the French Absinthe Museam and Marie-Claude Delahaye. A unique quality control procedure that applies to both our Absinthe Supérieure, Parisienne and Blanche.