In 1806 Pedro Front and Francisco Juncadelia, two men from Barcelona, constructed what would become the Old Absinthe House - on the corner of Bourbon Street in The French Quarter  of New Orleans: Built to house an imporatation firm retailing such commodities as food, tobacco and Spanish Liquor. In 1815 the ground floor was converted into a saloon run by the nephews of Francisco Juncadelia, known as Aleix's Coffee House. Much later, in 1874, resident mixologist Cayetano Ferrer crated the famous Absinthe House Frappe - leading to the venue being renamed The Absinthe Room, and later the Old Absinthe House.  After the prohibition of absinthe in 1912, the original Old Absinthe House bar was destroyed as a message that absinthe would not to be tolerated.

The Old Absinthe House was frequented by such names as Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde and Aleister Crowley, who wrote his "Absinthe: The Green Goddess" while at the Old Absinthe House, proclaiming "Art is the soul of life, and the Old Absinthe House is the heart and soul of the old quarter of New Orleans"