Absinthe-loving officer

A company commander at the beginning of World War I was a drinker of absinthe. Each noon and each evening, he would pour it into the bottom of a glass, hold a perforated spoon filled with sugar above it, drip some water into it, and guzzle it down. He always had plenty of the beverage, despite the lack of an obvious source. His underofficer Pierre Barres did not see any difference between this absinthe-drinker and any officer who did not touch the stuff. By early 1916, the absinthe-lover was dead.