Talk:Jack of All/@comment-9843739-20140104042238/@comment-11170851-20140104090559

Wormwood is a scrub like bush/weed/plant that was, in the past, used to distill absinth. There are more types than I originally thought there was as evident by the Wikipedia page on the scientific name of the plant.

BUT: There's two of important note within this context (greater/aromatic wormwood and lesser wormwood)

Greater wormwood was used in absinth until the point where they banned the distilling of it, given it was assumed to be a hallucinogenic. (This is, of course, ignoring the fact that the hallucinogenic properties of  absinth actually came from the interaction of the copper based dye and the wormwood that was used to colour cheap absinth.)

Lesser wormwood is now used to distill absinth, as it supposedly has less hallucinogenic properties. ...Again, this ignores the fact that regulations have tightened on how you produce booze, so you can't put in all the nasty icky dyes that were routinely turning folks mad in Bohemian Paris.

Wormwood, as a plant, has a fairly nasty reputation within Christian mythos, as the comet that is supposed to foretell the start of the end of days is called Wormwood, and the devil rides on it.

(Okay, grammar of this post got away from me, but hopefully it's clear enough?)