For three reasons:

1. It's Taste - the plant has a bitter taste that contributes to absinthe's distinctive flavour. Wormwood is also found in vermouth.
2. It's Colour - the chlorophyll that remains in absinthe after infusion with wormwood gives absinthe its green colour. After exposure to light, or through a natural aging process, the chlorophyll decomposes. This is why many vintage absinthes aren't green at all, but often amber, or even brown.
3. It's Psychoactive Properties - it is the 'thujone' in wormwood that gives absinthe its hallucinogenic properties. Wormwood is said to affect the brain in a similar way to THC (the psychoactive component of cannabis).

Most absinthes available will say that they include wormwood. The majority we've tested though don't have any wormwood at all, and the most any have is 3mg per litre. That's just one third of the amount in Sebor Absinth ^TM!

The Sebor Absinth ^TM sold on this site has a minimum of 9mg of wormwood per litre. There is no absinthe brand available that contains more wormwood than Sebor Absinth ^TM.

Should you wish to use wormwood for any of the following ailments you must first dry the leaves and flowers and make an incredibly bitter tea. Enjoy. For the faint-hearted, wormwood is available as a tincture or in powder form.

The Ancient Egyptians swore by wormwood to get rid of their intestinal worms. The Aztecs had to agree, but took things a few steps further and prescribed wormwood for all of the following:

• - expel intestinal parasites
• - aid digestion
• - stimulate the appetite

• - promote menstruation
• - use on infected wounds or exposed ulcers

A more recent discovery has been wormwood's efficacy as an anti-malarial agent. Arteminisin (found in Chinese wormwood) is now used as the active ingredient in the anti-malarial combination therapy 'Coartem', which is produced by the WHO in conjunction with Novartis.

So while it's important not to forget wormwood when planning out your vegetable plot, please also remember that there are active substances in wormwood that shouldn't be trifled with. Use sparingly. Wormwood should be avoided by pregnant women.

As you can see in the 'Wormwood and the Bible' section below, wormwood has been closely associated by many with the apocalypse, and further connected to the Chernobyl disaster of 1986. 'Chernobyl' can be translated as 'wormwood', and in the Bible (in Revelation) wormwood is said to poison a third of the world's waters. An eerie coincidence?

Mary Mycio named her book on Chernobyl after the wormwood she found there:

"When the people left and friendly farmlands steadily gave way to feral fields and wormwood forests, the storks eventually left, too, and their nests largely rotted, the debris blown away by wind."

Wormwood Forest : A Natural History of Chernobyl by Mary Mycio

Where does the word 'wormwood' come from? An Anglosaxon word 'wermode' translates as 'mind preserver', which is quite funny when you consider absinthe's bad boy reputation. Wormwood was called 'absinthium' by Romans, derived from the word 'absinthial' which means 'bitter', and the Greek word 'apsinthion' which means 'undrinkable', which is always reassuring. Perhaps the name is in fact just a simple reference to the fact that several civilisations have sworn by wormwood as a cure for intestinal 'worms'.

Ancient Egyptians used recipes containing wormwood to cure our old friends the intestinal parasites.

The Ancient Greeks dedicated wormwood to their goddess Artemisia, and claimed that the plant could counteract poison; whether it was poison from hemlock, mushrooms, or sea dragons, wormwood was the antidote you needed. Hippocrates also prescribed it for jaundice, anaemia, rheumatism and menstrual pains.

There once was a Greek doctor in Ancient Rome, whose name was Soranus. Soranus had lots of tricks up his sleeve to help women get rid of awkward babies. Jumping up and down was almost foolproof, as was riding a horse and generally leaping around a lot. Failing that, it was a dead cert that sitting in a bath with wormwood would ensure the pregnancy's termination.

Rumour has it that to this day, in some parts of Europe , wormwood gets called 'Girdle of St. John' and is believed to ward off evil spirits.

Wormwood is apparently in the Bible at least a dozen times, so do let us know if you spot any more mentions!

Wormwood is most often used in the Bible itself as a metaphor describing how something or someone has become bitter and poisoned:

But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood ( Amos 6:11 -12).

My son, be attentive to my wisdom, incline your ear to my understanding that you may guard knowledge. From the lips of a loose woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil; but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol; she does not take heed to the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it. ( Proverbs 5:1-6)

He drove into my heart the arrows of his quiver; I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the burden of their songs all day long. He has filled me with bitterness, he has sated me with wormwood. He has made my teeth grind on gravel and made me cower in ashes; my soul is bereft of peace, I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, 'Gone is my glory and my expectation from The Lord. Remember my affliction and my bitterness, the wormwood and the gall! ( Lamentations 3:12-19)

However it is the following passage from Revelation that has caused the most controversy over recent years, not least for its resonance with the Chernobyl diasaster as detailed above:

"And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter." ( Revelation 8:10-12)

Although this part isn't in the Bible itself, the creation story often features wormwood, with the plant growing in the wake of the serpent as he leaves Eden.

Wormwood most often pops up in Shakespeare not in absinthe but in another popular alcoholic beverage: wine. Wormwood wine was known as 'eisel' or 'eysell'.

Hamlet will do anything to prove he loved Ophelia more than Laertes did:

'Swounds, show me what thou'lt do:
Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?
Woo't drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?
I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine?
To outface me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with her, and so will I:
And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us, till our ground,
Singeing his pate against the burning zone,
Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth,
I'll rant as well as thou.
( Hamlet , Act 5 Scene 1)

In one of Shakespeare's sonnets, wormwood's natural bitterness is used to create powerful imagery:

I will drink
Potions of eysell, gainst my strong infection
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance to correct correction.
( Sonnet CXI )

In Shakespeare's time wormwood was used to help wean babies, as the Nurse recalls in Romeo and Juliet :

And she was wean'd,--I never shall forget it,--
Of all the days of the year, upon that day:

For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,
Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall;
My lord and you were then at Mantua :--
Nay, I do bear a brain:--but, as I said,

When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple
Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,
To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug!
( Romeo and Juliet , Act 1 Scene 3)

• - Miss Wormwood, a minor character in the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip by Bill Watterson
• - Wormwood, a song by Tristania
• - Wormwood, an album by American jam band moe
• - Wormwood, a character in the novel The Screwtape Letters, by C. S. Lewis
• - Wormwood, the star that falls onto the earth and poisons water sources in the Book of Revelation