Heard about it a few months ago from my art teacher, and i have been intrigued by it ever since. I heard It's Johnny Depp's favorite thing.
here some tips to avoid buying some trash: - high quality absinth contains anise - high quality absinth is judgeable independently from it's thujon content - high quality absinth is manufactured with sugar adding - high quality absinth does not contain any artificial addings - high quality absinth is manufactured without oils - high quality absinth is not glowing blueish/greenish - high quality absinth is not available in supermarkets - high quality absinth does not numb your tongue - high quality absinth has a strong traditional manufacturing history - high quality absinth is not used to be drink straight - high quality absinth has an alcohol content of 45 up to 74% volume - high quality absinth has no chemical smell The stuff that makes you hallucinating is called "Thujon" and is often limited to a certain degree which will allow the maker to sell it officialy. But in the Jurassian part of Switzerland (the origin and birthplace of the absinth) you can still get it from outlaw distilleries if you know how to ask. Here some great absinths: - Absinth Abisinthe 45 - Absinth Abisinthe 72 - Absinth Deniset - Absinth Libertine - Francois Guy - La Fée Absinthe - La Muse Verte - Segarra - Ulex Ordinaire - Un Emile - Versinthe La Blanche, amer aux plantes d´absinthe - Absinth Kübler I love that stuff. And I recommend to not light the sugar when put on the spoon. Just let the ice-cold water run trough it and then enjoy.
If you never drank before, it's not recommended. A friend of mine is a light drinker, and when I gave him a shot he started tearing. The thing is 90.9% alcohol. Make sure you have somethign to wash it down with just in case.
Sounds like Latinum [i see in the old west and old England settinged movies] or is it opium Rocket RIver
BTW, did anyone else notice that Johnny Depp is drinking it on a couple of occasions in the movie "From Hell"?
I wouldn't say that. It's always the amount that makes the difference. If you get a good one, then you can easily have like 2-4 of them (4cl each) with water. Except the small Thujon content it is almost the same like Pastis (Pernod, Ricard, etc.). Take one of the brands I recommended and you just be fine. Real absinth has not more alcohol then 74° Alcohol. When you mix it with water 50/50 it is not stronger then a classic bourbon.
I dont know about real absinthe...but I know the Olde Absinthe House is a great little bar in the French Quarter, if you're ever in New Orleans.
that sounds good. If I'll ever have the chance to go there,....I try to find it. BTW, what is the best time to go to Nawlins a.) with buddies b.) with girlfriend thanks.
depends on what you're looking for...my answer may be entirely different than those of others here! but my wife and i had a blast there around Valentine's Day one year. i've been during the heat of the summer, and new orleans may be the only place in the country more humid than houston. my sister and her husband love going there around Christmas time....Halloween is supposed to be very interesting there.
The wife and I have been to New Orleans twice during Christmas (once we spent a Christmas Eve) and had a great time. Just enough people to be fun but not crazy like during festival. We've also gone for jazz fest! That was a blast!
thanks. when going with some friends, we would most likely end up boozing alot and checking out some recordstores and eating out a lot. when going with my girl I would surely slow down a bit and check out the nice parts of the city while getting to some great concerts and clubs, etc. Mardi Gras is not really recommendable, isn't it?
Some accurate info on absinthe (from http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_385.html) ... Absinthe is illegal in most places now, but a century ago it was the most fashionable drink in France--the 19th-century equivalent of cocaine, even requiring a special spoon. You didn't use the perforated absinthe spoon to put the stuff up your nose, though, but to hold a lump of sugar over the absinthe glass while you poured in water. The water diluted the potent liqueur--absinthe was 60 to 75 percent alcohol--while the sugar took off the bitter edge. (The word absinthe is thought to derive from the Greek apsinthion, undrinkable, although the wormwood-flavored beverages of antiquity were different from that sipped in the cafes of Montmartre.) A transparent green when poured from the bottle, absinthe turned milky green, then opalescent with the addition of water. The spoon, the color, and the ritual were part of the mystique of absinthe, which enthusiasts called la fee verte, the Green Fairy. Drink enough absinthe and you'd see lots of green fairies--or pink elephants. Absinthe was embraced by the artists and bohemians of the Parisian demimonde, who thought it unleashed the imagination, increased mental acuity, and so on. Oscar Wilde, who had more than a casual acquaintance with absinthe, wrote, "After the first glass you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world." Wilde wasn't the only creative eminence to enjoy absinthe. The roll of literary and artistic types who flirted with the Green Fairy, often at the expense of their art, includes some of the most distinguished names of the 19th century: the poets Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Verlaine; the painters Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Toulouse-Lautrec; and many others who prided themselves on living close to the edge in the glittering if decadent cafe society of the belle epoch. (For a wonderful evocation of absinthe's role in that lost world, see Barnaby Conrad III's 1988 book Absinthe: History in a Bottle.). It couldn't last. Absinthe was blamed, somewhat unfairly, for the high rate of alcoholism in France (the real culprit was undoubtedly wine, which was consumed in far greater quantities). Temperance advocates and newspapers linked it to several horrifying murders, and it was ultimately banned in France and many other countries in the years leading up to World War I. Was the stuff really so bad? Many point to the ingredient wormwood (Artemisia absinthium), which contains the neurotoxin thujone. Thujone is chemically similar to THC, the active ingredient in mar1juana, and some speculate that the two compounds act on the brain in similar ways. Others say that even chronic absinthe drinkers couldn't consume enough thujone to do real damage--you'd pass out in a drunken stupor first--and that the real culprit was alcohol. These days it's all pretty much academic--absinthe remains illegal in most places. It's still made in Spain and the Czech Republic and can be sold in the UK. But the concentration of thujone in the modern product is much less than in the old days. If you'd rather avoid trouble with the law, you can buy Absente, which as you say is an absinthe substitute made with southern wormwood. Doesn't sound like much of a deal to me--you're not getting the genuine article, and it's still highly alcoholic (110 proof). But maybe cirrhosis is a small price to pay to feel like Toulouse-Lautrec. -- droxford
droxford, good post. I just like to add that the real absinthe is newly again distilled in switzerland. We had to limit the content of Thujon to sell it legally. One of the most traditional brands is: http://www.blackmint.ch/english/produits/absinthe.html
Didn't one of the guys from Motorhead wig out one night on this stuff, run around a hotel naked and end up in the wrong room?
