About Absinthe - The Video
On June 30, 2008 in Back to basic
Nice video from Jade Liqueurs about how they made their superb absinthe.
Beware of homemade absinthe kits !
On June 20, 2008 in Absinthe news
All of them were created by people utterly ignorant of how to create absinthe.
Absinthe is a distilled product. You CANNOT make something approximating absinthe without distillation. Soaking barley in vodka won’t give you whisky. Soaking wormwood in Everclear won’t give you absinthe. It won’t taste like absinthe, and it won’t BE absinthe. All you’ll have done is turn a perfectly good bottle of neutral high proof alcohol into a disgustingly bitter, vile tasting mess.
Pastis isn’t absinthe without the wormwood. Adding wormwood essence to pastis won’t make it taste like absinthe. Undiluted wormwood oil is also a potentially dangerous substance, and can lead to severe renal failure if drunk neat. Stay away from it.
In short, unless you have access to a still, it is not physically or chemically possible to make anything remotely approximating absinthe.
The Green Fairy Returns To America
On June 20, 2008 in Absinthe news
Absinthe is a spirit of mythic proportions: it has been blamed for violence, insanity, and bizarre hallucinations–most notably the conjuring of little green fairies. Some even claim it helped drive Vincent van Gogh to suicide.
“Absinthe has always had this strange phenomenon where it’s the victim and the beneficiary of its mystique,” said Robert Lehrman, a lawyer who represents Kübler, a Swiss-based absinthe distiller. “There is something different about it that has helped and hurt it at the same time.”
Now, after nearly a century, Americans have the chance to sample the mischievous green liquor for themselves. Last spring, government officials finally agreed to allow the word “absinthe” on bottle labels, effectively ending a 95-year ban.
Absinthe enthusiasts from Seattle to Boston are thrilled that the spirit has returned to the United States. Most now realize that it does not cause violent rages or visions of green fairies, and while van Gogh did imbibe, the stuff didn’t kill him.
“Absinthe was an important ingredient in some of the earliest cocktails, and it’s been missing in our country since 1912,” said Gwydion Stone, founder of the Wormwood Society, a Seattle-based absinthe aficionados club. Not only are bartenders learning to recreate pre-ban absinthe cocktails, Stone added, but they are also mixing innovative new drinks using the licorice-flavored spirit.
Absinthe originated in Switzerland’s Val de Travers in the late 18th century. It contains a minimum of nine herbs, usually including wormwood, anise and fennel. The resulting pale, lime-green liquor is “a very perfumed spirit with the flavor of anise,” said Ted Breaux, an absinthe researcher and distiller who created Lucid, one brand of absinthe now available in the United States. “It’s slightly sweet, goes down easily and packs quite a punch.”
Though originally consumed as a medicinal stomach-soother, absinthe soon spread through Europe as a popular social lubricant. But the potent liquor was banned throughout much of Europe in the early 1900s amid rumors that it caused violence and insanity. The United States followed suit, outlawing absinthe in 1912. Later, the Food and Drug Administration kept absinthe off shelves by banning thujone, a chemical found in wormwood that is toxic in high doses.
There things stood until a few years ago, when several people who were determined to reintroduce the spirit to the United States petitioned the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. When they pointed out that products with less than 10 parts per million of thujone are considered “thujone-free” by the FDA, the government relented and agreed to allow the term “absinthe” back on bottle labels.
When it is not mixed into cocktails, absinthe is most popularly consumed with sugar cubes melted into it, a concoction dubbed the absinthe drip. The spirit is best consumed carefully, as the alcohol content of most brands hovers around a stinging 60 percent. Distributors say that absinthe is gaining popularity as more bars and liquor stores start to sell it, but it can still be tough to find a bottle, or even an absinthe cocktail, since only a handful of companies currently distribute in the United States.
New genuine Absinthe available !
On February 08, 2008 in Czech Absinthe
Zufanek distillery announced their new product, Absinthe St. Antoine ! Information on their site is currently in Czech language only, so let’s take a closer English look:
Legendary, mystical, sinful beverage of bohemians, artists and bar good-for-nothings prepared by the original French recipe. Absinthe St. Antoine was born by slow destilation of chosen plants including two kinds of wormwood which gave the absinthe neurotoxic thujon.
With reference to our 100% pure products motto we prepared the absinthe from natural ingredients only. The essence is made up by very fine ethanol in which chosen plants and spices are macerated for an exactly determined time. After maceration it comes to destilation during which almost a pure liquor originates. Into such liquor other plants are put which give the absinthe a specific colour and thus compound the powerful flavour.
According to the fact that we watchfully kept the original recipe and the character of the original French absinthe (as opposed to most of the commercial „happily coloured“ absinthes blended in coolness), Absinthe St. Antoine also comprises neurotoxic thujon in a maximum amount of 25mg/l.
Absinthe (also absinth, French L´Absinthe from the Latin absinthium) is a spirit manufactured predominantely from wormwood, anise and other plants (coriander, veronica, sweet balm, hyssop and other). Nowadays, production of absinthe is illegal in most of the European countries (except for the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal). Absinthe contains approximately 70% of alcohol, has halucinogenic effects caused by presence of neurotoxic thujon (latest labory tests declined it). In history, consumption of absinthe often caused schizophrenia. Today these side affects are reduced according to the modern way of preparation.
Modern world distinguishes two basic kinds of absinthe. The first of them is the French one, sometimes also called „genuine“. When mixed with water, it should make turbid and get milk-like colour. The second type is the east European absinthe often titled as Czech (bohemian style) which is usually blue-coloured. This type of absinthe is usually blended cool, coloured by dyestuff without anise component, which allegedly is not very popular among Czechs.
Absinthe is shrouded by many legends about its effects it was supposed to cause. We often encounter with drinkers who describe their halucinogenic experiences embodied by a green fairy or white mice. It´s interesting that most of the contemporary narrations can not come out of personal experience but are rather caused by extremely high volume of alcohol.
You can buy it at goodmood absinthe store.
Will absinthe make me trip to the skies ?
On October 08, 2007 in Back to basic
No, it will not.
It’s easy to find, on the internet, descriptions of alleged absinthe “trips”. They were either written by idiots, or the substance upon which the describers tripped was something other than absinthe, or both. There are no psychoactive (in the sense of LSD, THC, etc.) ingredients in absinthe. Absinthe will not make you fail a drug test, either, unless the test is designed to find the ingredients in absinthe, all of which are legal substances. If absinthe makes you fail a drug test due to false positives for illegal substances, your problem is not absinthe, but an incompetent drug tester. Yes, you can find glorious descriptions of absinthe highs in 19th century literature. They’re largely so much flowery hot air, written by poets. Poets tend to exaggerate things. There are odes to the divine attributes of whisky and beer. There are thousands of poems about wine. You get the point.
Will Absinthe hurt me ?
On October 08, 2007 in Back to basic
It certainly will, if you drink a bottle of it and drive into a tree! But it won’t poison you or make you crazy. The dyes used by producers of old to turn the lesser-quality products green were sometimes little short of poisons themselves, but no commercial absinthe producer could stoop that low today even if he wanted to, due to food and drug regulations.
In addition, because absinthe followed back to its roots is a “home remedy”, it must be considered that every plant in it is there for a reason - they all have some effect on the human body. These effects, such as the reduction of fever, were obviously considered desirable by the writers of early herbals and pharmacopeias.
Just as the discerning consumer of herbal products from the health food store should inform himself as to the possible ramifications of ingesting these substances, the consumer of absinthe, especially if he is in poor health, should do his homework. Epileptics in particular should be wary, as some of the substances found in small quantities in absinthe are convulsants. A discussion of the effects on the human body of all the herbs that might be found in absinthe (none of them are illegal plants) is beyond the scope of this FAQ, but is covered in some of the other documents on this site.
Most importantly of all, 140-proof liquor is not a thing to be taken lightly, even by a completely healthy person.