What is the link between
Absinth, murder, Van Gogh and Ateliers de Construction Automobile?
The capital of Haut-Doubs in the
region Franche-Comté is Pontarlier.
It has two main assets: the absinthdistilleries
and a car
museum of 8000 m². Until 1915,
Pontarlier was the capital of absinth, a bitter
green liquor based on the plant Artemisia absinthium.
The liquor contains about 75 % alcohol. It was very much the
favorite drink of 'creative people'. It is known that
Vincent Van Gogh,
Guy de Maupassant, Oscar Wilde and Ernest Hemingway
were big users of this liquor. It became forbidden when the Swiss Jean Lanfray killed
his whole family after consuming too much wine and absinth. It was
assumed that the toxic thujon
within absinth was the major cause of the murder. Now you can get
absinth again but the toxic thujon has been removed.The Musée Sbarro is named after Franco Sbarro, an Italian car constructor and designer who worked in his Ateliers de Construction Automobile (ACA) in the Swisse Grandson, nearby the lake of Neuchatel.
Check out the route linked to this story
Bron: Lannoo, 2006, 28 motorroutes