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Monday, August 10, 2009

Old Absinthe House, New Orleans

CONSTANT SIEGE - Jean Lafitte’s Old Absinthe House, Bourbon Street,...



Jean Lafitte’s Old Absinthe House, Bourbon Street, New Orleans, as photographed in the 1890s.

Built in 1806 (some date 1798), it’s said that the pirate Jean Lafitte and Andrew Jackson planned the Battle of New Orleans in the upstairs apartments. Serving absinthe since at least 1874 (when legal), it still houses original cold-water drip fountains, the marble bases now pitted from over a century of use.

Aleister Crowley wrote ‘Absinthe The Green Goddess’ there, while waiting for a female companion to arrive. Other guests to drink there: Oscar Wilde, Robert E. Lee, PT Barnum, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Enrico Caruso, FDR, and Frank Sinatra.


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