Europe Today - BBC World Service


Absinthe Festival - Boveresse Switzerland

Imogen Foulkes on an illicit Swiss celebration. (29th June 2001)

The drink absinthe has for long had a dubious reputation - at the start of the 20th century it was a 
popular tipple - but it was also notorious as the drink that caused madness and destroyed families. 

Nowadays absinthe is banned in many European countries, including France, Belgium, and 
normally law-abiding Switzerland. But there is one corner of Switzerland which chooses not to 
obey the law, and this weekend the village of Boveresse in the Jura will be holding its very own 
absinthe festival.

The Jura has always chosen a somewhat different path to the rest of Switzerland. The people here 
are fiercely independent - they may be only an hour or so's drive from the Swiss capital, but they 
speak French not German, and even the countryside seems to reflect their somewhat prickly 
individualism. There are no rolling pastures and neat chalets with geraniums in window boxes here 
- this is a region of dark forests, narrow valleys and rushing streams. 

It is also the home of Swiss absinthe. The drink was actually banned in Switzerland in 1910, but 
somehow the people of the Jura paid no attention. This weekend they will be celebrating their 4th 
annual absinthe festival. 

Everything to do with absinthe will be on display, from the famous ingredients fennel, anise and 
wormwood, to old stills and antique bottle labels. But what about the drink itself? Will it be there 
for sampling? The people of the Jura become coy at this question - perhaps, they reply, with sly 
smiles. 

Not so long ago I went hunting for absinthe makers in the Jura - it was an interesting, if frustrating 
experience. I was welcomed into the home of the local schoolmaster, who lovingly poured out 
measures of absinthe over sugar cubes using the traditional absinthe glasses and spoons. But when 
I asked him where I might buy a bottle for myself, he fell silent - making absinthe is illegal and 
offenders have received very high fines, so the schoolmaster did not want to reveal his supplier.

A visit to the local chemist proved equally fruitless - at the back of his shop were huge barrels of 
those notorious ingredients: dried fennel, anise and wormwood - people love herbal teas around 
here, he told me with an enormous wink; they're very healthy. 

Just around the corner was the village plumber, also a charming man, but not necessarily the right 
person to call if you'd got blocked pipes - he was far too busy repairing stills. Once again though 
he didn't feel inclined to tell me who owned them. 

So although the Jura will be celebrating its illicit drink this weekend, it's unlikely any of the local 
inhabitants will be owning up to actually making it. The people of the Jura are proud of their 
absinthe, but they know too that to hang on to it, they have to keep some things a secret. 

For Europe Today, this is Imogen Foulkes in Berne.