La Fée Absinthe

La Fée LIVE is the first dedicated online Absinthe bar training facility in the world.

La Fée is excited to roll out this new, clean and green technology to further educate our partners, their clients and consumers during the coming decade. Our unique media bar is custom-built for brand training, development and awareness.  Changing the way sales teams are trained today, harmonising new technology for sales teams training to that associated with management video conferencing. Having laid hundreds of metres of fibre-optic and CAT5 cable to a unique bar with permanent multi camera installations & flat screen monitors, we can now offer seamless communication with any partner signed up to our service across Europe, the Americas & Asia-Pacific.

We now offer dedicated interactive online absinthe training sessions from our UK HQ:  In partnership with our global distributors we aim to directly train sales teams with live sessions and offer full seminars and interviews – all in real-time.  At a moment’s notice we can arrange live and interactive sessions to any location world-wide.

The bespoke system is designed to suit the needs of our distribution partners, with face to face communication; no travel time, great flexibility in arranging sessions and instant access to our expertise - all whilst greatly reducing travel related carbon emissions.  This will allow for more direct investment in supporting our clients.  Already Vinopolis, World Duty Free and Glazer’s Family of Companies have expressed interest in utilising this technology, as we look to offer regular weekly training to our key industry partners.

The dedicated system has been built to give La Fée the ability to train, converse and give interviews the world over at very short notice, taking communication with the brand to a new and dynamic level.  Testing of the media platform has been carried out with Cellar Trends (UK) and is soon to commence with Glazer’s of Missouri & Glazer’s of Ohio (USA) & Think Spirits (Asia-Pacific).

If you would like to arrange an interview with La Fée brand owner George Rowley from the La Fée LIVE training facility please email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or call 0044 (0)1992 511 445


La Fée is dramatically expanding from its European home across the USA and into Asia-Pacific.  As a consequence it is clearly impossible to maintain the level of education we would wish using traditional methods.  Our dedicated team can now be in two places at once, thanks to utilising this new, exciting & far greener technology - clearly the future for training in the spirits industry.  George Rowley, 12th July 2010
 

La Fée Absinthe [ George Rowley, brand owner ] & Le Musée de l’Absinthe [ Marie-Claude Delahaye, founder ] answer the FFS (Fédération Française des Spiritueux - French Federation of Spirits) emergency call to defend France’s inherent right to distil Absinthe; against  a seemingly politically and commercially driven Swiss ploy to control the Absinthe category.

George Rowley, Brand Owner La Fée, delivering dossier of evidence supporting France's rights to Absinthe,
Fédération Française Spiritueux Paris Headquarters, 7 Rue De Madrid.
View The Dossier HERE

As Swiss distillers attempt to gain exclusive rights to the name ‘Absinthe’ using domestic Swiss IPG - geographical protection (similar to AOC law) - George Rowley & Marie-Claude Delahaye raced to Paris for crisis talks with Marie-Delphine Benech (Chairperson of the FFS) to assist in the FFS counter.

Marie-Claude Delahaye, Marie-Delphine Benech (Chairperson) FFS, George Rowley, Jane Rowley & La Fée's Paris bases distiller, 16th April 2010 Paris.

La Fée Celebrates 10 Years since returning Traditional Absinthe Distilling to France

On the 25th of July 2010 La Fée celebrates the 10 year anniversary of returning the distilling of traditional absinthe to France, launched on the same date in 2000 at the Groucho Club in Soho, London. This paved the way for the French & Swiss Absinthe Renaissance which we are experiencing today.

Rowley & Delahaye oversee a distillation of Grande Absinthe - La Fée Parisienne

In 1999 two of the most influential pioneers in the field of absinthe; Englishman George Rowley & Frenchwoman Marie Claude Delahaye joined their expertise and employed a Parisian distiller in the returning of legally distilled traditional absinthe to France for the first time since the 1915 ban.  Rowley had previously introduced absinth to Europe from the Czech Republic in 1998 – setting the precedent for the spirit in the EU.  Delahaye, a cellular biologist at the Marie Curie University as well as the founder of Le Musée de l’Absinthe, Auvers-Sur-Oise, France.
And so, after overcoming legal boundaries and sourcing a 19th Century recipe from Le Musée de l’Absinthe – La Fée returned the Green Fairy to her spiritual homeland.  After  ten years distilling our award winning Traditional French Absinthe, our Paris based operation is further expanding the absinthe category across Europe, the Americas & Asia-Pacific; with La Fée currently available in over 30 countries.  La Fée also distil ultra premium Absinthe in France and Switzerland.

La Fée was featured in the February issue of The Chap magazine, where our X•S Suisse recieved yet another shining review. Here is what they had to say:

La Fée XS Suisse
This bottling is the flagship of La Fée's range, arguably the most popular brand since absinthe was reintroduced in 2000.
Colour: Clear, with a very faint violet hue. Louches quickly.
Nose: Dry, with vermouth-like notes and light fruit and cereal notes. With water, a peppery spiciness emerges.
Palate: A creamy note is first to emerge, followed by a chalky dryness, then the anise flavour. Not as predominantly aromatic as the other absinthes, but pleasant and easy to drink.
Overall: Another very differently styled absinthe, which demonstrates just how versatile this excellent spirit can be.

CLICK HERE to buy La Fée X•S Suisse

 "God Save the Cream"
THE ICECREAMISTS

NV by La Fée stars in the Infamous Sex Pistol Ice-Cream.  Guerilla ice-cream installation by The IceCreamists [Agents of Cool] at the Ultralounge, Selfridges, London, W1A 1AB

La Fée X•S Suisse takes third consecutive Golden Spoon at the 2009 Absinthiades

‘The Green Fairy’ was thought to be illegal in the UK and was indeed banned across most of Europe and North America. George Rowley was most instrumental in its resurrection but before I tell his story, what is absinthe’s history and why was absinthe banned in the first place?

Words: Simon Difford

From left: Dr Ordinaire, Val-De-Travers, Toulouse Lautrec

BIRTH OF ABSINTHE

The origin of absinthe’s name, like its origin itself is both unclear and a matter of conjecture but it is thought to derive from the Greek word ‘apsinthion’ meaning either ‘wormwood’ or ‘undrinkable’ (presumably due to its bitter taste).
Earliest origins date back to ancient Egypt and medicinal use of wormwood is mentioned in Ebers Papyrus, circa 1550 BC. The ancient Greeks used wormwood extracts and winesoaked wormwood leaves as remedies and there is also evidence of the existence of a wormwood-flavoured wine around this time made by Hippocrates that was handed down as a cure for digestive and flatulence disorders. Modern day absinthe originated around the time of the French Revolution (1789–1799) when thousands of French loyalists sought safety through exile in Switzerland, Alsace, and other nearby countries. One such elderly émigré was Dr. Pierre Ordinaire, a retired French physician who fled to Switzerland and settled in the town of Couvet. Thus far the story is well substantiated. According to popular legend (and Pernod- Ricard’s marketing bumph) Dr. Ordinaire started work on creating a new elixir drink using plant extracts, in particularly wormwood, long considered to have medicinal properties. He sought to make a tonic which made ingestion of the bitter herb more palatable and, in 1792, the good doctor utilised distillation to arrive at his final formulae involving the maceration of fifteen botanicals in grape spirit.  These included wormwood bark, star-anise, liquorice, fennel, hyssop, parsley, camomile, spinach and coriander but he called the drink Extrait d'Absinthe after Artemisia absinthium, the Latin name for wormwood. On his death, Dr. Ordinaire left the recipe for the drink and a substantial sum of money to his trusty housekeepers, the Henriod sisters.  They made small batches of his potion and started hawking it as Dr. Ordinaire’s Absinthe.

Pretty Women of Paris......

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