The Absinthe Forger (Evan Rail)

Now in paperback: an astonishing true crime story about an eccentric grifter who blew up the lucrative black market for vintage bottles of the legendary drink of artistic renegades, absinthe . . .Thought to be hallucinogenic and banned globally for a century, absinthe is once again legal and popular. Yet it is still associated with bohemian lifestyles, just as when it was the favorite drink of avant-gardists like Toulouse-Lautrec and Van Gogh and Baudelaire. And today, when vintage, pre-ban bottles are discovered, they can sell for exorbitant prices to private collectors. But such discoveries are increasingly rare.Which is why the absinthe demimonde of rich collectors was electrified when a mysterious bon vivant claimed to be in possession of a collection of precious, pre-ban bottles.Is his secret tranche of 100-year-old bottles real? And just who is the shadowy person selling them? And what about rumors of another secret cache, hidden away in an Italian palazzo?Journalist Evan Rail se