Remember when I posted the WIRED article about T.A. Breaux and his adventures in absinthe analysis and distilling?
Well, he’s since gone and produced an “authentic” absinthe that will be legal here in the states. It’s called Lucid and has a silly bottle.
According to the NY Times:
Mr. Breaux also had to keep the American palate in mind while developing Lucid. “In the U.S., anise is a sort of a strange flavor,� he said. “We don’t get a lot of exposure to it.� So Mr. Breaux made sure that Lucid had a slightly cleaner, crisper taste than its European peers.
…
Lucid will be available starting next month, priced at $59.95 for a 750-milliliter bottle. A Web site, DrinkLucid.com, will soon post information on liquor stores that will carry the product.
I sampled the 124-proof liqueur last week, while watching the National Basketball Association playoffs. When diluted with water and a pinch of sugar, the absinthe’s taste is strong and pleasant. And the buzz has an odd way of focusing the mind — I’ve rarely been so entranced by the swish of a basketball net.
Fantastic!
I see us killing a bottle or four of that.
The site has mixed drink recipes and one of them is Lucid Red Bull
*hurl*
Wow…$60/bottle, hopefully they will have some product intro promo pricing. Not that I’m permitted to have that stuff in the Barracks, but I certainly can’t wait to grab a bottle.
Just had to sell my Absinthe glasses/strainers at my garage sale last weekend…very sad.
And you didn’t even call… I see how it is.
Oh, and I consider $60 a bargain since Breaux’s other distillations run around $150 a bottle plus courier smuggling/delivery.
No way, I get it shipped over for about $29 a bottle with shipping at about $10 - $12 bones. As someone who is not a fan of anise I’m sure interested.
And to be true, i don’t mind the $29 stuff at all. I dig it a bunch, in fact (especially since I *am* a fan of anise).
This guy’s recipes are supposed to be all high-falutin’ though, so I’m sure curious.
Yeah, if I add airfare & hotel to my last bottle of Absinthe, then the price was a bit higher than $60, and at the time…the Euro wasn’t too friendly, which already made the price fairly steep.
As for the glasses, ‘oops’ my bad, I should have thought to call. Next time…
what’s the % of thujone in this brand/ can you send some case to bush.? it might jumpstart him on the drinking problems
I believe the thujone % is next to nil, which is how it’s legal in the US.
Reviews seem to indicate it still “works”, however…
After sampling my own Bottle Of Lucid, I have come to a few Conclusions.
First, the black Licorice taste is a bit over-powering. (straight shot) When made tradionally, with the spoon and sugar, it’s a more pleasant taste.
I did however, concoct my Own little Drink, (being the little mixologist I am)
I have named it the Night Shadow, and will be posting the Recipe on my Myspace page.
http://www.myspace.com/fatguyinaleathercoat
It wil be under the blog section.
Worth the cost, and glad to have it around.
The Thujone content is roughly 10mg per liter (or 10ppm). That is not alot… however, the thujone is not what creates the legendary effect of absinthe. Check out this Wiki article on Thujone - it explains this point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thujone
Pipalmighty, the “black licorice” (anise) flavor you’re talking about has been reduced significantly - in Lucid Absinthe - from that of traditional absinthe, which is MUCH more licoricey. I don’t like traditional absinthe for that exact reason. I just ordered my 1st bottle of Lucid today and I’m looking forward to getting it tomorrow (free overnight shipping from DrinkUpNY.com) so I can taste it for myself.
I’m hoping it is indeed less potent in anise flavor because that’s one reason I ordered it.
And $60 (if it’s really as good as people are saying) is a BARGAIN for a bottle of Absinthe with a full-measure of actual Wormwood. That is hard to find!!
Actually, I was mistaken about the Thujone content in Lucid. It isn’t 10mg/L. Evidently that is the legal limit for Thujone content and Lucid is under that legal limit. I don’t find any specification of the Thujone content in Lucid other than that it’s very low. Some have called it “zero thujone”, but I doubt that’s true. Anyhow, I think it has been pretty well proven that Thujone content has little relation to the effectiveness of the Absinthe. Any product which boasts high Thujone levels is probably lying to outsell their competitors. If not, then they are putting their clientele at risk by exposing them to unnecessary amounts of a chemical that has been shown to have potentially harmful effects in high dosages.
I also placed an order at DrinkupNY, though they are currently on backorder:
Anything I can do to demonstrate demand, right?
And really guys, absinthe is *supposed* to have a strong anise flavor…
Craig, I took the shot of Lucid along side a shot of Absinthe (about 1 hour apart) since I still have some left over from when I was in the Navy and bought some in Europe. The real Absinthe has less of a black licorice flavor than the Lucid did… but I was abe to tone it down a little… the sugar really helps. I also made some of the simple syrup which does the trick nicely too…
Does any one know of a working coupon code I could use at the Drinkupny.com website when I purchase the Lucid Absinthe?
I feel compelled to help dispel the myth of how Absinthe works, particularly in the new FDA approved version.
Lucid (the legal absinthe) contains Thujone, it is impossible to seperate it from Artemesia Absinthium. It does however, not cross over through the distillation process to any great extent. Where Lucid is concerned, the inventor asserts he has reverse engineered actual 19th century Absinthes found at estate sales and from other collectors, in this process he has found that the actual thujone content of these traditional absinthes just happens to fall under the legal requirements of the US (along with a successful argument in semantics with the FDA) and he has created Lucid, jumped through all the correct hoops, and here it is.
The problem we are facing today with all the other producers of the appertif is that the true formulaes were lost and those that produced it in the internm, what with the law screaming about thujone, assumed that there must be high concentrations in the original formulaes, which we now know is untrue.
Alcohol is a GABA agonist. It stimulates the production of this neurotransmitter which causes drowsiness and sleep.
Thujone is a GABA antagonist. It prohibits alcohol from performing that part of it’s function.
Absinthe is therefore a type of ’speedball’, it’s chemical constituents at once promote the production of GABA and opens its receptors, while also closing those receptors off. This explains the ‘lucid’ effect that absinthe has, as oppossed to just normal drunkenness, which is associated with drowsiness.
Another definition would be that the inhibitory effect of the antagonist thujone allows the consumer of absinthe to reach a stage of drunkenness that one would not be able to experience; the key word here is experience, not achieve; if one were consuming normal alcohol.
This is the muse revealed. All the thujone allows is for the door opened in the psyche by alcohol to remain open longer, allowing the consumer to experience the effects of the alcohol as he would normally not be able to.
My above passage is further proved by this quote from the National Academy of the Sciences.
“…the 10 ppm (66 µM) upper limit of the European Commission (6) and particularly the 260 ppm (1710 µM) thujone content of old absinthe (6) would give a detectable to major inhibitory effect beyond that of the ethanol content. Current low levels of thujone in absinthe are of much less toxicological concern than the ethanol contentâ€?
Wormwood is traditional an insecticide and used to treat intestinal worms. The herb itself has been safely used for centuries for this specific treatment. I have grown wormwood and have a lb. sitting in my cupboard. I drink it straight as a tisane with no toxic effects. Thujone itself will contribute to renal failure if taken in large doses. One should never consume the essential oil of wormwood for any purpose.
Lucid and those that follow like Marteau Verte Classique are to be, in my opinion, perfectly legitimate classic absinthes that contain thujone. When you drink it, you will be producing the effect in your brain that I described above.
Awesome, Drew.
I am drinking lucid right now and i feel kind of stoned and i have only had two shots and am working on my third just sipping away. It is not normal alcohol and it is not pot. some where in the middle. Who knows it feels good, but it is expensive. a great film to watch is the Darjeeling Limited directed by Wes Anderson, for its sound track and colors.
Sounds psychosomatic to me. All I’ve ever gotten from any absinthe is booze+buzz. It’s a nice little upper/downer mix. Nothing I’d call “stoned”.