As someone with a healthy fear of the neuron-poisoning powers of wormwood, talk me into absinthe.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/absinthe-history/ I haven't done a lot of research on this one, but I also haven't found anything that's said "wormwood is not a thing to ingest." I know gin is worse for you in general because the juniper essential oils will fuck with your vascular system and I know absinthe is worse for you in general because toxicity, but I don't know how much worse, ya kna?Although Ponchon’s skepticism became less organized as the poem progressed, his initial point is well taken. It is still not clear how much absinthe was too much. The human dose-response relation is difficult to assess from available data. The binge drinker experienced hallucinations from acute intoxication; the chronic imbiber suffered some irreversible brain damage to an extent dependent on the amount of absinthe and the frequency of consumption as well as the age, nutritional status and general health of the imbiber. Upset stomachs were common in habitual drinkers, particularly those whose diets were less than adequate.
Hmm. I wasn't sure if it was a sliding scale or a case of needing to reach a tipping point for everything to go sideways and shitty. I skimmed that SciAm article (did Mr. van Gogh shoot himself? Really? The case for murder is way more plausible than I was expecting) -- but it was written in '89. According to Wikipedia, absinthe's good name was somewhat rescued in the '90s (legalized again, for example) thanks to some revisionist thinking regarding its toxicity. I don't know the details. I do know it's still a very different and less toxic product in the US (but thenewgreen swears it's not as good). So I don't know. Still handy when you need to sneak a flask in somewhere intolerable (a football game you don't want to be at, for example) but get much drunker than one flask should deal.