Absinthe

[k1ngl1ves]

To me, it tastes like moldy licorice. The whole sugar cube bs process didn't make it any better. It may have actually made it worse. It was a cloudy, somewhat colorless liquid. If this was that bad, I can only imagine how nasty the green crap must be. One of the worst things I've ever drank. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.




Basically, it's not for me. Lol!

 

[MaxStout]

I have several varieties of absinthe in my liquor cabinet. Lucid is the most commonly found brand and it's not bad to start out on. Better brands include Delaware Phoenix, a micro distillery in New York, and Mansinthe (Marilyn Manson's commissioned absinthe). Kubler is quite good, too.

Avoid the brands from eastern Europe--those tend to be fakes, made from grain alcohol with infused botanicals. Tourment comes to mind, but there are many others to avoid. Also, be aware that Pernod does not make true absinthe anymore, just pastis. If you just ask for "Pernod" in the store, you will get pastis. The difference: pastis is an anise-flavored liqueur, which has added sugar, but no wormwood. Absinthe is distilled from a mash containing several botanicals, including grand wormwood and anise. No sugar added.

Absinthe was banned in the early 1900s, primarily due to lobbying from the wine industry, which saw it as a threat. The fact that the drink was popular with a bohemian crowd didn't help its image. The stories of absinthe-fueled lunacy and crime were completely fabricated, and prime examples of the yellow journalism that was common in the day. I believe it was banned first in France, then a few other European nations followed suit, then the U.S. The U.S. ban was lifted in about 2007, allowing a limit of 10 ppm thujone. Some absinthes sold in Europe may have thujone levels up around 35 ppm. The toxic threshold of thujone is orders of magnitude higher; you won't hallucinate from absinthe.

 

[Britinusa]

Just reading about Absinthe, it was saying the Chlorophyll in the botanical s gave it a green tint, i guess the ones who tried to make a cheep copy faked the green?
I have never tried it.

 

[MaxStout]

Just reading about Absinthe, it was saying the Chlorophyll in the botanical s gave it a green tint, i guess the ones who tried to make a cheep copy faked the green?
I have never tried it.

Anise is the dominant flavor, but the wormwood adds a complexity to it. If you don't like anise, you won't like absinthe. If you do, try to find a bar that serves it before spending upwards of $50 on a bottle. Don't drink it straight--it's awful that way. It needs to be slowly diluted about 2:1 with ice-cold water (the "louche"), to bring the oils out of solution. This really opens up the flavor. When louched, it tastes entirely different than straight. Some people prefer the sugar cube, but really good absinthe should not need it.

 

[ebstauffer]

Thujone can, however, have psychoactive effects in the right quantities, aided by alcohol. Actual hallucinations are highly unlikely, though.

We've (I work at a distillery) done considerable research before deciding against producing absinthe (low consumer uptake, high cost of production, consistency difficulties, trouble with fixating color, on and on and one) and never came across a well controlled study that showed any quantity of thujone caused hallucinations: convulsions and short-term memory effects yes (as you noted), hallucinations no Here's a reasonable, freely-available article on the subject:

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/email/html/cen_86_i18_8618sci2.html

 

[ebstauffer]

Just reading about Absinthe, it was saying the Chlorophyll in the botanical s gave it a green tint, i guess the ones who tried to make a cheep copy faked the green?

That may be the case. There are two distinct steps in the production: the first is to macerate botanicals in neutral spirits for some period of time. Grand Wormwood is traditionally in this first step. This is this distilled and results in a clear spirit. The second part is the coloring -- additional herbs are soaked in the distilled spirits including petite, or roman, wormwood that lend color to the spirit. This is then filtered and bottled. It's (in my experience) very difficult to keep the color a nice green. The solution we tried is a deeply tinted bottle which prevents (well, actually slowed ) the browning of the spirit. Although the TTB does allow artifical coloring, I'm uncertain if doing so completely eliminates the need for the second step; in other words, I dont know if the second imparts any flavor to the spirit.

Edit: punctuation
Edit 2: spelling

 

[mirrored]

So what other psychoactive effects are possible if not hallucinations?

And does it mess with serotonin levels in brain? Does anybody know - as far as I know, it might be since it's hallucinogenic (thujone), and some things like ayahuasca do have that effect and their usage yields a possibility of serotonin storm.