By the time the ban on absinthe was lifted in Europe, several generations had already grown up who did not know the taste of wormwood tincture and were completely indifferent to it. But in 1998, during the filming of Sleepy Hollow in England, Johnny Depp began to talk about his amazing feelings after a couple of glasses of Hill’s absinthe. The charm of the famous actor was so great that many of his fans considered it their duty to try this drink. The exquisite taste of Hill’s has appealed to many. So in England, and then in the rest of Europe, a new fashion for absinthe arose.
In 1920, the Czech entrepreneur Albin Hill created Hill’s Liguere. At first he was engaged in the wholesale trade of alcoholic beverages, but he soon realized that it was much more profitable to produce alcohol on his own. The distillery built by Hill made excellent liqueurs, which the company successfully exported to European countries. The company also produced several varieties of absinthe, one of them was Hill’s.
Albin Hill’s son Radomil, born in 1924, showed interest in his father’s business from an early age. Even before World War II, the young man graduated from the Berlin School of Blenders and Distillers. In 1947, Radomil Hill was already running his own business.
But in 1948, the Hill company was nationalized. To earn a living, Pan Albin got a job as a night watchman for his former distillery, and Pan Radomil as a truck driver.
However, the young driver too often gave useful advice to technologists, and the factory authorities soon drew attention to his abilities. So Radomil became a blender, and later – the head of production.
In 1990, Pan Radomil Hill managed to regain the family business. He kept old recipes for his father’s famous absinthe, but a market had to be found. In 1998, before the lifting of the European ban on absinthe, Hill supplied a shipment of absinthe to England, where the drink was sold freely. But the British remained indifferent to the unknown Czech tincture. Sales went from bad to worse. And then, as if by magic, everything changed: Johnny Depp himself began to publicly confess in all interviews his ardent love for Hill’s absinthe.
Probably the general public will never know whether the artist was sincere or his behavior was explained by a small friendly gift from a representative of the Hill company. But the fact remains: after that, sales of absinthe increased several times.
It should be noted that sooner or later Hill’s would still become popular: in our time, people appreciate everything natural, and there are no preservatives or color stabilizers in the composition of the drink. Pan Radomil Hill made a single change to the old recipe: in accordance with European legislation, he reduced the content of thujone to 10 mg per liter.
Types of Absinthe Hills
There are two types of Hill’s absinthe:
- Hill’s – 70% abv emerald green absinthe, made according to the recipe of Albin Hill;
- Hill’s Premium is an absinthe the color of sun-scorched grass. The strength of the drink is 70%. It is insisted on 11 herbs.