As it contained wormwood it was mind- bending in time. It had many an addict in artistic and literary circles in C19 Paris. A notable example was the poet Baudelaire , who was moved to dye his hair green ' in honour of it'.It was never illegal in Britain but it never caught on here . It was illegal to import it, let alone sell or make it, in France from 1915 and equally illegal in Belgium ( 1905), Switzerland (1907 and Italy ( 1913). So, it would eventually have been very difficult to obtain in the UK anyway. Pernod is and was simply, like Ricard and the other 'pastis' drinks, made to be as close as possible to it in taste and character but without the wormwood ( and was devised by former makers of French absinthe ). Interestingly, you can now buy alcohol-free 'pastis'; but this bears a warning that it contains licorice ( bad for high blood pressure ) !.