On Wine and Hashish (Hesperus Classics)
Wine Brewing Kit - Red -
On Wine and Hashish (Hesperus Classics) Customer Review: A book about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ drugs
Hesperus Press publishes a range of interesting, lesser-known titles by respected writers. And this is another example. This edition offers two `essays’, the first providing a few pages on wine and it’s joys followed by an equally brief section on hashish; and, the lengthier second article (The Poem of Hashish) is purely concerned with `weed’: how to take it, how it’s made, what it does, when not to do it etc. A nice translation captures the humour of some passages, particularly Baudelaire’s accounts of individual experiences. I felt the book was an absorbing insight into 19th century drug culture including the ambiguity of the writer’s personal views. Baudelaire dramatically describes the effects of hashish intoxication, ranging from the torture of profound anxiety to a meditative state of heightened benevolence and pleasantly enhanced sensory awareness.
