Post #564563 by TorchGuy on Thu, Nov 11, 2010 6:48 AM

Mr. Moto knows his brands, at least from other reviews I've read. I haven't tried most of them. I admit I haven't read the entire thread, but here's my bit, as short as verbose me can make it:
Absinthe is, of course, now legal in the Western hemisphere. Thujone content must be kept under a certain limit. BUT-- Testing has proven that thujone doesn't have the effects ascribed to it. Historical absinthe from France contained only trace amounts. The absolute junk from the Czech Republic amounts to wormwood steeped in high-proof vodka or grain alcohol; most of it is not distilled, a process essential for making real absinthe, and "absinth" (note Czech spelling) almost always tastes like turpentine. And no, it doesn't get you high, just very drunk.

History corner: When the phyloxera blight hit the French grapevines in the 1800s, absinthe took over as the most popular national beverage. When the winemakers got back on their feet, their customer base had dried up, so they petitioned the government to do something. About the same time, a French temperant also petitioned the government - and since absinthe was THE drink, he latched on. Doctors produced falsified studies which rebranded alcoholism as "absinthism", purporting that only absinthe caused these symptoms. Really, though, absinthe habituees weren't going mad because their drink was absinthe; they were drinking 8-10 glasses a day of high-proof liquor. They were going mad from abuse of alcohol. Many of these same drunkards commonly drank cologne and even ether if necessary! Low-quality producers couldn't figure out how Pernod Fils got the enchanting and magical green color, the real inspiration for the term "green fairy", which was produced by macerating the distillate in herbs, so some of them colored their products with copper chloride, and those DID drive one mad! Then, in 1905, Jean Lafray, a laborer, drank two glasses of absinthe as he did every day, murdered his pregnant wife and two daughters aged 4 and 2, and tried (and failed) to kill himself. Thus went the bans, from the "absinthe murders". The fact that his every day consumption wasn't just absinthe was forgotten - it HAD to be the absinthe. What had he drunk that day? Seven glasses of wine, six of Cognac, two of creme de menthe, one brandy and coffee, and another brandy after getting home. EVERY DAY he drank like this.

If you buy the wrong brand of absinthe, you'll get something that tastes horrible. If you buy a kit and try to make it yourself, the result is NOT absinthe, is nothing like absinthe. Czech absinthe is really all bad. Hill's, the original Czech brand and still one of the worst, started around 1980, and created a fictional backstory about having been an 1890s manufacturer. Also, based on the then-popular habit of flaming ouzo and sambuca, they drew up the so-called Czech Absinthe Ritual, a modification of the real French method, which involves sugar and fire. While, if carried only to light carmelization, this method can be tasty with the right product, it isn't historically-accurate.

How to properly prepare French absinthe: Start with a proper glass, an absinthe spoon, sugar cubes, an absinthe fountain, and... Okay, you don't have some of those? You can get glasses at BevMo if you're in California, or online. Same for the spoons and fountain. But you CAN do without. Get a highball glass or water tumbler, and either a long-tined fork or, if you really are in a pinch, a tea-ball with a handle. Find a pitcher of some sort, and make sure you can pour an extremely thin, fine stream from it without water dribbling down the pitcher and off the base. Pour about 3/4 shot of absinthe into the glass; the purpose-made glasses have a bulge in the bottom that indicates the 'dose'. Put one or two sugar cubes on the absinthe spoon, fork, or in the tea-ball and balance it across the glass - do NOT let the sugar cube(s) fall in whole. Now, pour ice-cold, filtered water over the sugar cube(s), as slowly as possible, drop by drop if you can, and watch the magic happen; it is this ritualized, almost alchemical preparation that drew devotees. As the water dilutes the absinthe, watch the louche ("loosh"), which in a good product should eventually change transparent peridot green into an opalescent, almost iridescent, milky green-white. You want approximately a 4 or 5 to 1 water-to-absinthe ratio, and you want to do it slowly because various essential oils of the many herbs used in the distillation will precipitate out at various precise dilution levels. An absinthe fountain holds water and ice, and has a tap or spout with a key valve that can let water out drop-by-drop, leaving you free to drop down to eye level with the liquid and watch the loushe; you can bet French cafes were filled with men crouched down like this, eyeing the liquid as if their lives depended on it - it really is enchanting to watch. And if they saw others doing this and felt daunted, some ritzy cafes even had an Absinthe Professor on staff who, for a small fee, could school the customer in the exacting science and fine art of preparing absinthe! Gets your imagination going, doesn't it?

I don't have my fountain yet, but I'm slowly stocking up on other appropriate accoutrements. I have a few spoons, two proper "Pontarlier" type glasses, and I have a footed glass bowl for sugar, a conical footed tumbler for spoons, and an embossed goblet for my own serving, all made from fluorescent yellow-green "vaseline" (uranium oxide) glass. If you're in California, beautiful embossed goblets in two sizes made of uranium glass can be purchased at Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo - they sell many colors of their signature goblet, but the ones you want are transparent day-glo "Hi-Liter marker" yellow-green. They're not traditional absinthe glasses, but they look amazing and will shine brightly under a blacklight, as will all vaseline glass. And yes, it's safe, though not for long-term liquor storage; serving drinks in them is just fine.
~ TorchGuy

P.S. There's a brand in the US called Le Tourment Vert (translation: The Green Torment). Not sure if Mr. Moto mentioned it, but it's getting heavy pushing to bars. It can be seen on the left in Bigbrotiki's photo, and it's in a really beautiful bottle with a fairy, faces and a devil cleverly worked into the etching. It is, like the abominable Hill's, artificially-colored a bright Scope-like blue-green. Le Tourment Vert is, in my opinion, the world's only aftershave-flavored liqueur; it smells like Aqua Velva, tastes vile (good absinthe should be able to be tasted neat without the drinker making a "Mr. Yuk" face, in my opinion) and has zero louche. In short, maybe it has some sort of use to someone, but absinthe it isn't. Don't get sucked in, please don't buy it.

Mr. Moto, any experience with the Marilyn Manson absinthe, Mansinthe? It has so much potential to be awful and terrible junk, and yet I'm hoping it has SOME value since Tourment Vert doesn't. I haven't bought any (I tend to just grab Lucid since it tastes good, louches fairly well and is easily available in stores) and I don't really have a drive to try Mansinthe, not being much of a Marilyn Manson fan, but I figured I'd ask just the same.