Post #360746 by badpelican on Tue, Feb 12, 2008 10:15 AM

On 2008-02-05 20:31, Tiki_Cincy_Craig wrote:
I have several brands of Absinthe which I have purchased in Europe at home, as well as Pernod, Herbsaint and another artisanal Pastis. While I have not used the real absinthe in a tiki cocktail yet, I can tell you that there are some significant taste differences in pastis & absinthe. The pastis (including Absente and other pseudo-absinthes)are significantly sweeter than the genuine absinthe. The absinthe also has a much greater 'herbal' taste as compared to Pastis. In fact, I would liken the taste of pastis to be a bit more similar to anisette than to absinthe, by comparison.

If you do try the absinthe in a tiki drink, err on the side of caution and add a little at a time. You can always add more, but you can't get it out if you've added too much!

I substituted an absinthe - Blanche de Fougerolles that I had on hand instead of Pernod when I made my first Dr. Funk...... The taste of the absinthe was way too noticable. The drink was God-Awful, I wrote a big "no" on that page of Intoxica... Even mentally subtracting the absinthe taste I don't think I would have liked that drink. I added more ice and grenadine and was able to force it down.

On a side note if you want to try the real stuff I can heartily recommend absintheonline.com
I live near Seattle, WA and usually get my shipment (from London) in less than a week.