All About Absinthe (Part 1)
We call it the Clockwork Green Fairy.
Steampunks seem drawn to absinthe as much as we’re drawn to Afternoon Tea and brown vintage clothing, probably because we have so few modern rituals that speak to us of a past that never was. In performing the Absinthe ritual, we find a connection that slides us sideways into our alternate reality of retro-futurism.
In discussing Absinthe, it’s important to start at the beginning with the nature and formulation of Absinthe, and then to examine how and why it came to be painted with a mystique that persists to the modern day. In a later reci-blog, we’ll talk about the ritual itself.
What is Absinthe?
Absinthe is a unique concoction, neither wine nor quite a spirit, nor liquor. It can be made of grapes, or grain, or even beet sugar. It is best described as a “tea” of herbs that are macerated (soaked) and distilled in a neutral alcohol base. The herbs include the “trinity” of wormwood, anise, and fennel, and sometimes melissa, hyssop, star anise, angelica, peppermint, veronica, or coriander. The herbs are macerated with the alcohol and distilled; the distillate is referred to as “clandestine” absinthe, which we’ll discuss a bit later. The distillate is loaded with the essential oils of the herbs in solution.
Most absinthe undergoes a second maceration in which the spirit is infused with more fresh herbs, adding more flavor and extracting chlorophyll which creates the typical olive- or yellow-green color of the absinthe. The chlorophyll is subject to degradation from light, so most (good) absinthe is bottled in colored glass to preserve the color.
The quality of absinthe varies, and we’d like to steer you toward bottles that you won’t regret. Some things to look out for:
Color - bright green absinthe is artificially colored, and it’s hard to tell much about the herbs used; are they good, are they terrible, is there enough to provide a decent flavor, and what will happen when ice water is added? Best to avoid.
Price - higher priced absinthe is going to be better absinthe. Consider that each “dose” is one ounce, there are 25 doses in a 750 ml bottle. If you spend $100 on a bottle, that’s $4 per glass. Not so pricy when one does the maths.
Country of origin - in general France produces the best absinthe, but Switzerland is no slouch. Anything by Jade Liqueurs, LLC is good; their’s are formulated by the New Orleans chemist Ted Breaux from historic bottles. Alandia.de is a great source for absinthe if you want to mail-order it from Europe, and they have thorough reviews.
There are some very good local brands too; we like Redux (Golden Moon Distillery, Golden), State 38 Distillery (Golden) and Leopold Brothers (Denver). We haven’t yet tried Trinity (Loveland) but it’s a multiple gold medal winner.
We’d advise folx to avoid anything from eastern Europe - specifically the Czech Republic - since there’s some weird sh*t in their bottles. I’ve heard a few allegations of hallucinations from absinthe, and I’ve always had to ask, “did you drink it in eastern Europe?” Yeah, they did. Huh.
Jade’s Nouvelle Orleans
Formulated by Ted Breaux - one of our favorite of the Jade absinthes.
Why is Absinthe weird?
Well, it’s not.
That mystique, the Green Fairy, its hallucinogenic and devilish properties are a fabrication of capitalistic marketing. The hallucinogenic qualities were vividly portrayed by the media in a campaign to discredit absinthe as an alternative to the entrenched - but embattled - French wine industry.
The aphid phylloxera devastated the wine industry in the latter half of the nineteenth century. This meant that the spirit base of absinthe switched from brandy to (mostly) grain, completely bypassing the wine industry. As the vineyards began to recover, the wine industry launched PR campaigns which demonized absinthe in an effort to increase sales of grape-based spirits and wine. This coincided almost exactly with the Temperance movement in the US which demonized booze in general, and flavored it with a lot of old time religion and a litany of scare stories including blaming absinthe for debauchery, wife beating, and even epilepsy.
Vivid advertising image that is used on Alandia’s La Bleue Clandestine absinthe.
I mean, the preacher looks kind of demonic to me.
Things like absinthe hallucinations became common “wisdom” based on the hallucinogenic properties of wormwood, one of the three main herbs used in absinthe production. Wormwood’s hallucinogenic ingredient is thujone, and in a startling absence of Science, thujone was blamed for all sorts of bad sh*t that didn’t really happen. By the way, there’s more thujone in garden variety sage than wormwood.
What Science says is that you’d have to drink so much alcohol to get thujone poisoning (and thus the fabled hallucinations) that you’d already be dead of alcohol poisoning. But this didn’t prevent the massive PR campaign from inducing the US to ban the stuff in 1912.
Fortunately Science doesn’t care what the wine industry thinks, and in 2007 absinthe was again legal in the US when it was able to demonstrate that the amount of thujone in absinthe was too low to cause the alleged effects.
But there’s that other “mysterious” effect - when ice water is poured into absinthe, it swirls milky and iridescent. Funny thing, it’s our friend Science. A natural property of an herbal infusion in alcohol is that aromatic oils and essences dissolve to a much greater degree in alcohol than water. Because absinthe is a very high proof (typically around 68%), it can carry a high load of oils in the alcohol solution.
When ice water is added, it lowers the alcohol content and the dissolved oils drop out of solution and quickly form the milky haze, what is termed the “louche”. Adding water makes the oils accessible to taste and smell, and that’s when we get to experience the bouquet of herbal and floral fragrances that distinguish a great absinthe. It’s a bit like perfume; the fragrance really develops after the alcohol has evaporated.
Next up, we’ll examine the Absinthe Ritual, and probably say sketchy things about people who prefer their absinthe “neat”.