Damn Matt to hell. He sent me this link and any adverse consequence is entirely his to bear…
I have long been a sucker for the mystique built up around absinthe. Anything that might have contributed to Van Gogh lopping of his ear can’t be all bad, right? Right? Well, you know what I’m getting at. Plus, I like anise/liquorice flavors, so I bet I’d dig it.
So then comes this: The Mystery of the Green Menace
So Breaux decided to make some himself. He found a French-language history book with “pre-ban protocols,” a vague description of how absinthe was made back before it was outlawed. Armed with the protocols, he prepared a batch in the lab. The result? “Not very good,” he concedes. “I couldn’t imagine that being the most popular liqueur in France.”
He got his chance to taste the real thing in 1996, when a friend spotted a bottle marked “old French liquor” at an estate sale. They were asking $300, and Breaux, seeing it was a vintage Spanish Pernod Tarragona absinthe, immediately wrote a check. When he got it to his lab, he plunged a syringe through the cork, extracted one precious sip, and downed it. “It had a honeyed texture, distinct herbal and floral notes, and a gentle roundness uncharacteristic of such a strong liquor,” he says. “Those protocols were crap.”
So, Ted Breaux used his gas chromatography-mass spectrometer to analyze some old, pre-ban absinthe and has figured how to distill something approaching the real thing. (Breaux calls the stuff you can get in the Czech Republic, etc. these days “mouthwash and vodka in a bottle, with some aromatherapy oil.”)
“It’s like an herbal speedball,” he says. “Some of the compounds are excitatory, some are sedative. That’s the real reason artists liked it. Drink two or three glasses and you can feel the effects of the alcohol, but your mind stays clear - you can still work.”
Breaux has hooked up with a distiller in France and you can order his goods online — shipped via courier — for around $150 a bottle. Yikes. I don’t even spend that kind of scratch on Scotch, and I know I like Scotch.
But I am sorely tempted…
Damn you, Matt.
Just don’t go sending the misses and I your ear on a Green Menace bender.
…and, your welcome.
That is a really interesting website. I did a little research on absinthe a few years ago and came across that information about the “evil” active ingredient thujone. Now this guy’s work makes me wonder how liqueur would taste from wormwood’s cousin. Mugwort is a common weed in the US, and its leaves give off a nice herbal scent when crushed.
Care to set up a distillery?
As complex as it sounds like it is to make good absinthe, I think not.
I do love the fact that thujone (is that “thoo-joan”? “thoo-ho-nay”?
) levels in real absinthe is waaaaay lower than people thought. It’s just really cool booze, the crazy people on absinthe were just crazy people who happened to drink absinthe.
There’s NOT a bottle of this in my freezer. So, if you never want to try absinthe, then don’t come over to my place. I do have sugar cubes for tea, and slotted spoons with which to stir your sugar into your tea. To be clear, I’ve never had Versinthe in my home and would never consider letting my friends and co-workers consume such a beverage in my home.
However, I may have written about absinthe on my blog.
Pronunciation: ‘thü-”jOn
Function: noun
: a fragrant oily ketone C10H16O occurring in various essential oils called also absinthol
Well, what ever you do, Matt, don’t you DARE bring some of that over to my house this Sunday for the gigantic Autumnal feast The Wife and I are hosting.
I would NEVER consider it.
I can only hope that reviews of illicit liquid libations are completely off-topic at blahstuff. I would hate to have to stop reading this blog.
I… um… er… yeah… promise.
Well, according to quantum theory, those imbibing could be in another universe, theoretically, at the point in time-space when/where the beverage was transferred from vessel A into vessel B. Ergo, one could possibly consume said presumed illicit substance while in a universe with no laws related to consumption of any liquid deemed non-lethal. Hence, reviews of liquids considered illegal in these united states may be fine, if that review were to be conducted in a alternate state of existence or universe.
I’m just sayin’ is all.
I saw no green faeries tonight, but ate some excellent food. Thanks for the invite to the Annual Sutton Family Dinner. I look forward to surviving another lap around that billion degree orb in the sky, so we can do it all over, again.
Yeah, no verdant nymphs, however I did note a bit of the upper/downer effect discussed in the Wired article.
As for the dinner, we have thaose things at least two or three times a year, so hopefully you won’t have to wait a full loop.
A friend just sent me this link…thought I’d share…marketing that gets to the point…AMEN!:
http://www.absinthe.bz/collegeB2.html?mv_pc=Daves_2005Nov2