Vincent Van Gogh was rather fond of absinthe.... Part of absinthe’s appeal was thanks to the French army which supplied the drink to its troops based in Algeria and Indo-China to ward off malaria and dysentery. Returning home, soldiers found they’d developed a taste for the stuff and started ordering it in bars.... Things came to a head, though, in 1905 when Swiss-French labourer Jean Lanfray shot and killed his pregnant wife and two baby daughters in a drunken rage after knocking back some ab