Absinthe is back in fashion – not only in Switzerland but around the world. We went to the Val-de-Travers, where it all began, to discover the secrets of controversial drink experiencing a second golden age. The green fairy is dead. She’s lying on the ground with a dagger in her heart. Standing beside her, a cleric indicates the time of the killing: midnight, October 7, 1910. The label of the absinthe bottle “La Belle Époque” sums up, in a few square centimetres, the fate of a distillate that ended up in the book of cursed drinks, condemned by collective hysteria and moralism of the day. We’re in Couvet, in the heart of the Val-de-Travers, a valley between Neuchâtel and Pontarlier, France, and the historical cradle of absinthe. Philippe Martin welcomes us to his distillery, La Valote Martin. “On March 1, 2025, exactly 20 years after the ban was lifted, I inaugurated my new distillery, perpetuating the family tradition,” he says. “This building was once a riding stable and housed ...
