I didn't know absinthe was being sold again in the US...

[lulamishka]

A Liquor of Legend Makes a Comeback
By Pete Wells
The New York Times

EARLIER this year, when Lance Winters heard that absinthe was being sold in the United States again for the first time since 1912, he shrugged it off. Then he reconsidered. He’d spent 11 years perfecting an absinthe at St. George Spirits, the distillery where he works in Alameda, Calif., and considered it one of the best things he’d ever made. Why not sell it?

Over the past few months, he must have wished he’d stuck to his first instinct.

The division of the Treasury Department that approves alcohol packaging sent back his label seven times, he said. They thought it looked too much like the British pound note. They wondered why it was called Absinthe Verte when their lab analysis said the liquid inside was amber. Mostly, it seemed to him, they didn’t like the monkey.

“I had the image of a spider monkey beating on a skull with femur bones," Mr. Winters said. But he said that the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau thought the label “implied that there are hallucinogenic, mind-altering or psychotropic qualities" to the product.

“I said, ‘You get all that just from looking at a monkey?’"

His frustration came to a sudden end last Wednesday, when he learned the agency had finally granted approval to his St. George Absinthe Verte, the first American-made absinthe on the market in almost a century.

Since the start of the year, at least four absinthes, including two from Europe and one from South America, have been cleared for sale. At the same time, hundred-year-old legends about its ties to murder and madness have been discredited. For years, absinthe’s chief appeal has been its shady reputation and contraband status. It was said to have caused artists like Van Gogh to hallucinate. Now that it is safe and legal, will anyone still drink it?

To find out, I tried the two absinthes on sale in New York along with an early sample of St. George Absinthe Verte. And I was astonished by how delicate, gentle and refreshing they were. Astonished in part because of my earlier run-ins with absinthe. There was the Portuguese stuff that looked like radiator fluid and tasted like a mouthful of copper. There was the Czech product that a friend smuggled past customs in a mouthwash bottle. I would have preferred the mouthwash.

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Another European brand is “the color of reactor cooling fluid and there’s nothing natural about that," said Mr. Winters, who would know. Before turning to alcohol as a full-time job, he worked as an engineer on a reactor on board a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

Absinthe aficionados agree that a lot of absinthe isn’t very good.

“Before Hurricane Katrina destroyed a lot of my things, I had a very extensive collection of bad absinthe," said T. A. Breaux, a former resident of New Orleans who designed one of the new absinthes, Lucid. Most of Mr. Breaux’s bad absinthe is modern, but the taste of absinthe has been problematic for centuries. The word comes from the Greek apsinthion, which means undrinkable. The essential ingredient in absinthe, a medicinal herb called grand wormwood, is profoundly bitter. How bitter?

“Ever take malaria pills?" Mr. Winters asked. “Ever bite into one?"

http://food.aol.com/absinthe-liquor-legend

[myles hie]

Anybody try any of this stuff before?

[absolut_v]

i haven't yet but i have a bottle i brought back from Estonia.
Most of the Absinthe made today is without the wormwood extact.
so dont expect to trip out these days on it

[myles hie]

Whats it taste like?

[Clubhopper11]

It has a strong liquerish (I hope I am spelling that word right..LOL) taste. It takes a bit getting used but I only have one that my brother in law got for me when he was in Portugal. Can't say that is good or bad compared to others because I have not tried any other. I am sure that there are better ones out there.

It does provide a proper buzz right away though.

[myles hie]

Originally Posted by Clubhopper11

It has a strong liquerish (I hope I am spelling that word right..LOL) taste. It takes a bit getting used but I only have one that my brother in law got for me when he was in Portugal. Can't say that is good or bad compared to others because I have not tried any other. I am sure that there are better ones out there.

It does provide a proper buzz right away though.

Liquor-ish or Licorice-ish?

[BrooksNYC]

There's still tons of nonsense flying around with regards to absinthe thanks, in no small part, to unscrupulous vendors eager to make a sale. Anyone interested in modern absinthes made in accordance with historical recipes and methods of distillation should be wary of aggressively marketed "so-called" absinthes (sometimes spelled "absinths") from the Czech Republic. These products bear no resemblance to the absinthes popular in France and elsewhere during absinthe's pre-ban golden age.

At no point — not now, not ever — has absinthe had hallucinogenic properties. Absinthe's sensationalized "secondary effects" have been erroneously attributed to a component in wormwood called thujone. A decade of laboratory testing has dissected and debunked the thujone myth, but vendors are still pedaling the myth for profit ("Belle Epoque, XXX-tra HIGH thujone!"). Modern analysis of the best nineteenth-century absinthes has shown that they contained, in fact, only trace amounts of thujone. The subtly "alert" quality of absinthe intoxication is attributable to the stimulating effects of various herbs used in distillation. (Although if alertness is your goal, you're better off having a mocha latte from Starbucks than a glass of 110 to 144 proof absinthe.)

Sites such as the Wormwood Society, The Absinthe Museum, and La Fee Verte are good sources of up-to-date, level-headed information. You'll find history, the latest research on thujone (sans hype), reviews of modern and vintage absinthes, and a list of reputable vendors. The importance of doing your homework before buying absinthe can't be stressed enough. You can as easily pay $120.00 for something that tastes like mouthwash as you can for a fine artisinal product, so let the buyer beware.

Wormwood Society
www.wormwoodsociety.org

The Absinthe Museum
http://www.oxygenee.com/

Fee Verte
http://www.feeverte.net/faq.html

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absinthe

Good modern absinthe is not "absinthe lite," as many would have you believe. In composition and methods of distillation, it is identical to absinthe made before the ban.

Two legal imports — Lucid and Kübler — are available now in big city liquor stores, and online from sites such as Drinkupny, which hopes to have St. George in stock by January or February '08.

The best and tastiest commercial absinthes are not yet available in the States, although they're easy enough to purchase online from sites like Liqueurs de France. Delivery guaranteed.

Drink Up NY
http://www.drinkupny.com/category_s/86.htm

Liqueurs de France
http://www.absintheonline.com/

Last year, the New Yorker magazine did a very interesting interview with Ted Breaux, the man behind the very fine Jade Absinthes. Here's a link to a PDF file:

http://www.absintheonline.com/acatalog/news.html (Scroll halfway down the page and look for the March 2006 issue of the New Yorker. The article is entitled "Green Gold, the return of absinthe.")

Cheers!

[djcarlosf]

i have a bottle of czech absinth 60% (120 proof) and high wormwood content.


took a month to get the four bottles, but worth it.


imagine a goat pissing into a cup, then a cat leaking into it as well. thats what it tastes like lol