© AFP/Stan Honda

Pablo Picasso's 1903 painting "Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto (The Absinthe Drinker)"

Switzerland is the birthplace of absinthe and should have the same protection as Champagne, claim producers.

Absinthe producers will not be able to sell their spirit in Switzerland as absinthe if it is not made within the country’s borders, according to a new ruling.

The decision by the Federal Office of Agriculture (OFAG) is designed to protect absinthe produced in Val-de-Travers in the west of Switzerland.

The status, similar to the French appellation system, protects the names “absinthe,” “Fee Verte” (“Green Fairy”) and “La Bleue” (“The Blue One”). These are used by local distillers who produce the drink made famous by artists and bohemian types in the late-19th century. Charles Baudelaire, Ernest Hemingway, Paul Verlaine, Vincent van Gogh and Oscar Wilde were all known to down the green spirit.

The Swiss absinthe makers’ organization said it was delighted at the decision but its ultimate aim was to see the drink elevated to the same hallowed status as French Champagne or Cognac.

However, absinthe producers based in Britain, France, Austria, Germany and the United States opposed the Swiss ruling, which was two years in the making. They have 30 days to lodge an appeal against the decision at Switzerland’s highest court, the Federal Tribunal.

The Office of Agriculture said its decision to give Swiss absinthe from Val-de-Travers protected status was justified because it was this region “that made the drink’s name.” It added that there was no question of allowing the spirit from another country or even another Swiss region to be sold, since “it is not proven that there is a tradition” of absinthe production in these regions. In total, 80 percent of Swiss-produced absinthe comes from Val-de-Travers and 65,000 liters were produced nationally in 2011.

Credited with hallucinogenic qualities and containing wormwood and other herbs, the drink was banned in Switzerland in 1910 after a man who drank it killed his wife and two children. The ban was lifted in 2005.

In France, a ban lasting nearly 100 years was removed in 2010. For the French, absinthe’s historic home is Pontarlier near the Swiss border. Some 15 producers make about 700,000 liters of the spirit each year.

The drink is typically prepared by pouring iced water over a cube of sugar on a perforated spoon atop a glass of neat spirit, which produces a characteristic clouding effect.