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Both of us discovered real absinthe on separate treks through Europe in the 1990s, and we were amazed by how common it was and how immediate the history felt, even centuries later, especially in the mountains of western Switzerland and eastern France. We've argued in The Little Green Book of Absinthe and in a previous blog post that drinkers shouldn't slavishly follow absinthe's traditions, but hey, we're still pretty impressed by the deep roots of European absinthe culture and the serious attitude distillers take toward doing things the right way. Take a look at some of Paul Nathan's discoveries at the Père François Museum in Môtiers, part of a Swiss valley known as the birthplace of absinthe.