Archive for the ‘Absinthe news’ Category
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.
Absinthe in Switzerland is back !
On October 07, 2007 in Absinthe news
MOTIER, Switzerland – Absinthe, the drink banned almost a century ago as “madness in a bottle” is making a comeback. The Swiss, who invented absinthe, legalized it this month, hoping to boost a sluggish regional economy and drag a generation of bootleg distillers into the 21st century. Known in France as the “Green Fairy” because of its color, absinthe was banned in much of Europe in the early 20th century, when heavy consumption of the bitter aniseed-flavored tipple was linked to hallucinations, violence and depression.
The Dutch painter Van Gogh is reputed to have sliced off his ear while under the influence. Fellow artists Picasso and Toulouse-Lautrec were also devotees, as were the writers Ernest Hemingway and Oscar Wilde.
But the Swiss, who outlawed it in 1910, laud the high-alcohol drink as a folk remedy and aperitif, and boast that they have never stopped drinking it despite the ban. On March 1, the day the ban was lifted, local distillers gathered in the village of Motier in the Val-de-Travers where absinthe is distilled for a festival celebrating the local brew.
ABSINTHE MINDED
The Swiss also hope to revive the Val-de-Travers economy. In 1910, the absinthe industry employed 600 on the Swiss side of the border and 3,000 on the French compared to a handful today. The quest for jobs has pushed concerns about absinthe’s possible side effects off the agenda completely.
“In order to succeed, you should forget the past. Absinthe is rich in culture and we need to use that to our advantage,” said Bernard Soguel, a Swiss member of parliament. “We have an international audience and we need to use our history.”
The Swiss have a unique claim on the absinthe’s history and hope to win “appellation” rights to use its name exclusively. According to legend, the drink dates from 1769 when a Val-de-Travers matron now known as Mother Henriod sold a concoction distilled from a dozen garden herbs to passers-by. The most important ingredient is wormwood, or artemisia absinthium, a relative of the daisy that contains thujone, a substance similar to menthol which is believed to give the drink hallucinogenic qualities. Absinthe is a clear drink that varies from 45 percent to 70 percent alcohol and which turns a light cloudy green or blue when mixed with water.
It is enjoying a revival with rock stars, jet-setters and in trendy urban bars lured by its old world glamour, wild reputation and the drinking rituals associated with it. Modern Drunkard, a magazine which celebrates today’s drinking culture, said even those revolted by absinthe’s taste are likely to be drawn by the spectacle of drinking rituals that involve sugar, water and in some cases setting it on fire.
source: signonsandiego.com