Post #359487 by GatorRob on Wed, Feb 6, 2008 7:22 AM

On 2008-02-05 11:34, I-Tiki wrote:
It makes sense since Pernod I believe was created when the company couldn't produce Absynth anymore.

Wait, let's think about that for a moment. If you're asking about substituting Absinthe for a pastis in a drink like a Zombie, I don't think there's any historical precedence for that. I mean, it's your drink. Make it however you prefer it. But if you're trying to re-create what Don the Beachcomber concocted, I think you're off the mark. Absinthe was outlawed in the U.S. in 1912, so Don wasn't using that. Pernod came along sometime after that as a substitute. Herbsaint hit the market in 1934, the same year that Don created the first Zombie. Since Herbsaint was a brand new product coming out of New Orleans and Don was in California, it's probably unlikely he used Herbsaint in that first Zombie and more likely he used Pernod. Now the recipe for Herbsaint was changed in the 1970s, so if you use it today in a Don the Beachcomber drink and you assume that Don also used it, then you're not using the same thing he did. Does anyone know if the Pernod recipe has changed over the years?