Three and a half years ago, I remarked:

In the late nineteenth century an aphid-like insect, Phylloxera vastatrix, destroyed most of the world’s vineyards, leading to the little-known fact that most French wines today are actually grown from Texas grapevine stock. The company that knows where to get disease-resistant vine stock will be in demand.
— Monoculture Considered Harmful, by John S. Quarterman, First Monday, volume 7, number 2 (February 2002),

Well, it turns out that back then, something else became in demand, as well:

In 1874, the French sipped 700,000 liters of the stuff; by the turn of the century, consumption had shot up to 36 million liters, driven in part by a phylloxera infestation that had devastated the wine-grape harvest.
— The Mystery of the Green Menace by Brian Ashcraft, Wired, Issue 13.11, November 2005.

That something else, the Green Menace, was absinthe.