The copper fountain sitting on the bar is the heart of the Old Absinthe House. It arrived from Paris in the eighteen seventies, designed to drip ice-cold water over sugar cubes into glasses of absinthe. Jean Cayard, who managed the bar during the nineteen twenties, hid bottles of real absinthe in the walls when the government banned the spirit. He kept the fountain running with water as a front, serving customers illicit drinks in plain sight while prohibition agents searched the floorboards.
Old Absinthe House
food drink