National Crème de Menthe Day September 15th
In 1905 Jean Lanfray, a Swiss peasant of French stock, murdered his wife and two daughters and tried to kill himself after drinking two glasses of absinthe. He was found the next morning collapsed across their dead bodies.
The publics reaction to the case was astonishing, solely focussed upon the two glasses of absinthe he had drank beforehand. However, it was also discovered that on the day of the murders he had also consumed two bottles of crème de menthe, hours before the attack.
Soon after the murder a petition was drawn up
by the Temperance movement demanding that absinthe be banned in Switzerland
and it was signed by over 82 000 local people, the pressure to ban absinthe
in France and Switzerland increased led by the Temperance
Movement.