[ABSINTHE] Catalogue Général … Distillerie Pontissalienne … Fabrique d’Absinthe Supérieure.

Pontarlier, Doubs: Distillerie Pontissalienne, [circa 1900]. Small octavo (150 x 105 mm), maroon faux crocodile-skin textured stiff card wrappers, gilt lettering to the front; 20 pp, chromolithographic pastedowns with Art Nouveau designs by the celebrated lithographers A. Waton of St. Etienne, title page and text in red and black, double-page halftone plate at centre; a superb example of a very attractive fin de siècle trade catalogue for absinthe and other exotic spirits and liqueurs, including Curaçao, Kirsch, Cognac and rum.

For an interesting short essay on the association between absinthe and literary creatives, see Jane Ciabattari’s Absinthe: How the Green Fairy became literature’s drink