However, as Michel Roux, the late spirits innovator and founder of a modern Absinthe brand called Absente explained to me, “You can make alcohol with anything you can distill or ferment.

It’s true. Cincinnati had its devotees of “La Fee Verte,” the “Green Fairy” so beloved of habitués of the Parisian demi-monde. According to the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette [4 February 1894]: ...