May 13, 2004

La Fee Verte A compendium of absinthe information and ephemera including history, art, and a buyers guide of brands currently manufactured.
posted by Dr. Zira 20 years ago
  • I've heard absinthe makes the heart grow fonder.
  • Then there was the soldier who was absinthe without leave.
  • Dr.Z: I've never tried absinthe since I'm in the US, but always wondered what it tasted like. Any relation to Chartreuse? And, there's a really interesting Basque liquor called Izarra. I couldn't get the html (what else is new?) to work, but the site (not in English) is: http://www.saveurs.sympatico.ca/ency_10/liqueur/izarra.htm . Tasted lovely, but really trashed me. For years, I got the craving to try it again, but resisted. Andy similarities to absinthe?
  • It looks to me as though Izarra is a compilation of several plants, so I'm not sure what would define the flavor. Results vary depending upon the brand, but true absinthe has sort of a licorice flavor, which I think comes from the anise. I really want to try Segarra, which was described on one of the forums as having a more butterscotch flavor.
  • Isn't la f
  • I tried absinthe once. Burns like a mufugga. Wish I hadn't had to work the next day, but it definitely made me play better poker; I cleaned up that night.
  • Absinthe makes thine head go wander.
  • Abyssinthe...its reputation in days of yore.
  • Vermouth also contains wormwood, just not in the same quanitiy.
  • Ah. So when I mix a Manhattan, I'm getting my red fairy on. Hmm.
  • good article, that. Once again, out-represe'ed by tha h-dogg.
  • I won't repent me of absinthe but swill like Edgar Allen Poe nipping at this dark Nepenthe I wonder why his ravens crow
  • All is right, again, Welcome back, bees.
  • I wouldn't mind having a go at the old absinthe, but it made poor Vincent hack part of his ear off, or was it that he was as mad as a cut snake?
  • As mad as a Leprechaun's mother. I enjoy a good Hemmingway, but the absinthe that's legal here is made extremely weak (by absinthe standards). It's basically just 182 proof booze and terrible: "I've since learned that this Czech brand, Hill's, is considered to be akin to window cleaner by absinthe connoisseurs, which is not surprising." "The liquor contains no detectable thujone."
  • 0ops: 140 proof.
  • yay bees is back yay!!!!!1!
  • I this and that in the milk of thy thujones.
  • I kiss you, Bees! Now how do we get the story out of him???
  • I once got the advice that instead of Absinthe, I should just go for ordinary Pernod. I ignored that advice, and was wrong to do so. Tried two of the new Absinthes -- Versinthe and Absinth -- and was sorely disappointed. Pretty waxy compared to Pernod. And unless it has the wormwood, why bother?
  • it's petite wormwood.
  • Governments have a lamentable tendency to want the citizenry to be in their 'rught minds'. So they ban things like wormwood and cocaine and other substances on the grounds that if they don't the populace will be too stupid not to kill themselves for sheer pleasure's sake. I have days where I suspect letting nature take its course might be preferable. I do not understand governments well, but the little I do understand I tend to dislike.
  • I think there should be a test: if you can prove, somehow, that you are not self-destructive addictive loon, then you should have warrant to fiddle with mind-altering substances. If you tend to be an addictive, drunken, inchoate human, then such passtimes should be barred for you. In either case, the test would be the application of heroic doses of such mind-altering substances. Have at you!
  • Capt: Can you elaborate on why you were "wrong to do so?" An associate of mine and I will be trying the fake wormwood-free Absinth (no e) soon. Can't get the real stuff in the States. What was your reaction? It's been a long damn time since I partook of anything even mildly psychotropic.
  • It will be as psychotropic as 140 proof booze can be, MCT. Not. Just order some real stuff through the mail, in the reading I've done on it over the years, I don't think you'll be prosecuted or fined in the States for having posession of it. I've never had any real stuff, just the Hill's crap. Apparently, from internet sources (that I wouldn't trust) it has 1/3 of the thujone content of most average absinthes, but I doubt it since they don't advertise thujone content.
  • MCT -- I ignored the advice a ninety-year-old wine merchant in the West Village just to go for Pernod instead. Absinthe has this whole myth built up around it, but the new stuff (what's available in North America, anyway) without the wormwood just tastes like a bad Pernod. Waxy. Burning. Burning wax. I suspect the real thing is very nice, but the imitation stuff is pretty lousy. The myth of Absinthe has been so built up that the imitation goop can only disappoint. I have three-quarters of a bottle of Versinthe that's been sitting on my shelf untouched for four years now. Honestly, my first reaction was 'oh, this tastes like Pernod, only it's shit...
  • Chy I take offense to that. Don't tread on my right to be a drunken lout! *hic* you . . panty-wearin'. . guy! *urp* So what's the difference between "real" and what we have in the States these days. Isn't the prospect of absinthesm or whatever - y'know mildly dissuading? Maybe you didn't have enough of the stuff . . .
  • The real stuff has wormwood in it, which is the stuff that separates it from regular ol' Jesus Juice. It's also the stuff that makes real absinthe illegal to sell in the US. So they came up with an artificial wormwood substitute (that evidently doesn't work nearly as well). This discussion reminds me of Christmas a couple of years ago, when I had a bit of Potcheen at a friend's house. I remember the label, with its bit red stamp: "NOW LEGAL!"
  • s/b big red stamp, obvs.
  • I have a bottle on my window sill! Smuggled here a mere two months ago!
  • There are those who argue that the thujone, which is chemically similar to THC, would in fact induce similar feelings if you could get enough of the stuff (of course it's a neurotoxin in larger doses, so be careful of bathtub absinthe)--however, these fellows argue, the fact that the liquor the thujone finds itself in is upwards of 100 proof pretty much assures that before you could get high, you'd be so blotto that you wouldn't know it. Of course others say the thujone simply serves to allow the alcohol to do its bidness while helping you maintain a certain mental sharpness that the booze by itself would dull, hence the amazing creativity some have felt. I'm researching for an article, so I guess I'll find out.
  • Evidently that link has had too much thujone :(
  • Well, now it's up.
  • I always imagined absinthe tasting like Shamrock Shakes.
  • That'd be an improvement.
  • Thank you for that mct, made my day.
  • Just this week I used an image from La Fee Verte to make a prop absinthe bottle for my play. I just finished painting the bulbous stem of a small rocks glass green to look like the reservoir of an absinthe glass. Thanks for the helpful links, Monkeys!