Post #186784 by Rum Numb Davey on Thu, Sep 15, 2005 11:10 AM

In my opinion, you should pay 30 to 80 euros. Shipping is excessive however. I have to take four trips to Europe per year in the wine trade. I just pick up a new bottle or two while I am there each time. I realize that other people don't have that option realistically.
Some of the prices on the web are just scandalous. Making a hundred bucks for facilitating a bottle online seems to be a rip-off. By the way, there are many fantastic pastis brands besides Absente, and spiking with wormwood/thunjone extract can be a poorman's substitute. Do not worry if you have a drug test scrutinized job which requires urine sampling. Thunjone or properly alpha-thujone does NOT have a THC (cannabinoid) structure and will not trip a positive. I know the urban legend.
A-Thunjone has a similar molecular structure to menthol, a-pinene, eucalyptol, camphor and other monoterpenes. A-Thunjone is now known to modulate only an entirely different receptor site, the GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) system. GABA moderates the firing of neural synapses; a-thujone mildly antagonizes such inhibition. Strangely, when I drink one or two louches, I feel alert and highly in tuned although buzzed. One night, we drank five louches with some heavy drinking Czech friends. Admittedly, we also drank many shots of Becherovka. After we retired Kim and I argued very much, and with much more intensity and emotion than what is normal. She won't drink Absinthe with me anymore. I believe you should respect the power of this spirit, and moderate your imbibbing.

Before the Revolution, the per capita consumption of RUM in the Colonies was 3.7 gallons PER person. We have become a Neo-temperant nation of wimps and quitters! We must rise, Tiki Nation, and raise our ceramic mugs in resistance to teatotaling!

[ Edited by: Rum Numb Davey 2005-09-15 11:33 ]

[ Edited by: Rum Numb Davey 2005-09-16 00:25 ]