C 1900 ~ French Victorian Wine ~ Match Strike

ABSINTHE SUPERIEURE MATCH STRIKER

This is a heavy pottery /stone pub match striker is 3 5/8 inches in diameter and 3 1/2 inches tall. The strike were a mainstay in English and French pubs holding the matches upright and struck along the rough side of the piece.

The match strike is in excellent condition, never used.

Allegedly created as an elixir in the 1790s by Dr. Pierre Ordinaire of Switzerland, absinthe became so popular in bars, bistros, cafés, and cabarets that, by the 1860s, the 5 p.m. happy hour was called l'heure verte ("the green hour"). By 1910, the French were drinking 36 million liters of absinthe per year, as compared to their annual consumption of almost 5 billion liters of wine.  As a result, the winemakers association, among other groups, began a campaign of misinformation that tied consuming absinthe to claims of insanity, criminal activity and hallucinations – all designed to discourage consumption. These claims were aided by the fact that unlike Cognac, champagne, etc., there was no law that defined absinthe – nothing to regulate the production and quality. In 1912, the U.S. Department of Agriculture banned absinthe in the United States