Anethole, also called anise camphor, is the organic compound that creates the aroma and flavor of anise and fennel (both in the botanical family Apiaceae), anise myrtle (Myrtaceae family), liquorice (Fabaceae family), and star anise (Illiciaceae family), among other plants and families.

The essential oils extracted from the roots, seeds or other parts contain the anethole. To create the liqueur, the oils are distilled with pure alcohol and sweetened with sugar.

The liqueurs are served neat, on the rocks, with water, or served with coffee as an after-dinner drink, where they can be drunk after the coffee or mixed into it.

When these liqueurs are mixed with water or other liquid (a traditional ratio is 1 part liqueur to 5 parts water), the anethole reacts to make the drink cloudy, a spontaneous emulsification known as the Ouzo Effect (photo #5).
 
 
THE HISTORY OF PERNOD

The ancestor of modern Pernod liqueur was created by a French physician, Pierre Ordinaire, in 1789. When retired in Switzerland, he created an elixir, a pain-relieving restorative. At the time, such elixirs were a common treatment for ills. (That’s how all spirits and liqueurs began. We now know that the “relief” was largely due to the euphoria-inducing properties of the alcohol.)

Dr. Ordinaire called his elixir absinthe, after one of its key ingredients, Artemisia absinthium, grand wormwood. It also contained green anise, sweet fennel, and other medicinal and culinary herbs.
 
Absinthe Goes Commercial

Some 10 years later, Dr. Ordinaire sold his formula to Major Daniel-Henry Dubied, who set up the first commercial absinthe distillery with his son-in-law, Henri-Louis Pernod. In 1805 Pernod established his own distillery, Pernod Fils, in France.

The original Pernod liqueur (absinthe) became very fashionable in the cafés of Paris. It was so popular that the evening cocktail hour was called “L’heure Verte” (The Green Hour), after absinthe’s green hue.

Absinthe was sweetened by pouring it over a sugar cube, held in a perforated spoon (photo #5). It was popular with artists, poets, writers and other members of bohemian society.

Some claimed it enhanced their creativity, and the drink was affectionately dubbed “The Green Fairy,” the artists’ muse. Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso and Vincent Van Gogh, among many others, were fans.

This rankled producers of other alcoholic beverages, who were losing sales. Over time, they were able to build a specious argument via advertising and newspaper articles about the [alleged] hallucinogen properties of a key ingredient, the herb wormwood (absinthium in Latin).

Wormwood contains the chemical thujone, which was believed to cause hallucinations.

While this theory was scientifically debunked almost a century later, it wreaked havoc. France and other countries banned the production and consumption of absinthe in 1915. (The U.S. banned it even earlier, in 1912. See the discussion in the footnote* below.)

In response, Pernod was reformulated without the wormwood, and launched as Pernod Traditionelle (Pernod Classic in the U.S.). The reformulation also substituted star anise for the green anise that gave, to avoid a green-hued color that would be associated with absinthe.

Pernod Traditionelle was pale yellow with a green tinge; and it was sweetened†, no sugar cube required. Following the absinthe tradition, drinkers frequently diluted it with water.