When Absinthe

Makes The Heart Grow Fonder

For days around Noumea’s docks recently, the air was heavy with the perfume of aniseed.

Old-timers in the neighbourhood raised their heads and sniffed like retriever hounds. A furtive tear or two might have been shed.

The Noumea Customs men had seized 1,600 flasks of aniseed essence and had poured it down the Customs House sink . . . and into the gutter.

The seizure was made aboard a Messageries Maritimes liner which had just arrived from France. It is generally supposed that the aniseed was destined to be clandestinely sold in Noumea.

Aniseed concentrate is used for making a broken-down type of absinthe sold in France under various trade names such as “Fastis”, “Pernod”, etc. It is a

national beverage in France.

But its importation into New Caledonia has been forbidden for some years.

When taken in excess, the drink seems to induce temporary madness; and when it was freely available in New Caledonia, there were many incidents. The New Caledonian natives, who procured it (illegally), drank it raw.

The flasks seized recently had an alcohol content of about 45 per cent. There has always been a “discreet” traffic in this product in New Caledonia, but this time someone wanted to hit the

jackpot.

The nominal value of each, flask seized would be about 500 Pacific francs (£2/10/-). But sold as it was intended to be by the would-be traffickers, the price would be anybody’s guess.

Even at 500 francs, though, 1,600 flasks would represent a nice sum . . . £4,000. —FRED

Dunn.