I just poured a shot of Pernod into a cafe glass and added the requisite amount of cold tap water. I now have a glassful of unappetizing urine-colored beverage instead of the normal milky cloudy aperatif I was expecting.
What the living fuck?
It TASTES like a glass of Pernod. The bottle is maybe a year old, but that’s normal for most US Pernod drinkers; we don’t have one but every couple months or so. Liquor doesn’t “go bad” in a year.
Help from booze chemists appreciated.
You may not have added enough water? Or added too quickly? IIRC, the cloudiness comes from the aromatic oils leaving suspension when it’s diluted. If it’s not diluted enough, they could possibly stay in suspension.
[semi-off track anecdote]
In my “eat at a Greek restaurant in a different city each month years,” we would always start with a glass of ouzo. Adding ice would produce a similar effect–clouding the liquor.
Married a wonderful woman who went with us the last year of Greek food overindulgence. When we were home one evening, having guest over, she poured them a glass each of ouzo(not!). Added an ice cube. Waited…and waited…and.
She didn’t realize she poured gin instead of ouzo.
Maybe you should use cold spring (nonchlorinated) water instead? 
No, I added the normal amount of water. First glass directly from the tap, out of laziness. Experimented with a second shot by pouring slowly from a small earthenware pitcher, the very image of an 80-year-old waiter at the Cafe de la Paix. Still no cloud.
I use good solid NYC tap water (da best in da WOILD) from Catskills reservoirs my entire adult life and never had this problem before.
samclem: You’ve inspired me. No more wanking around with fancy French booze. Tomorrow night: plain gin!
I read the title as “My Period Isn’t Cloudy!” and was very confused.
Not sure if I hope someone else did too since it’s probably better for civilization if it’s just me.
No louche in your Pernod? Have the essential oils in the pernod faded?
Very cool info!
Oy! The smells of ouzo are gin are extremely distinct. Even if they were in identical bottles, you should be able to tell instantly which it is when you open said bottle. Of course, having said that, I will admit that my wife somehow managed to grab for a bottle of…I’m not sure what, but grabbed and drank bleach instead. That confounded me just as much.
Ike: Had the bottle stood undisturbed for a long time? Perhaps the components settled out, and you got more of the watery contents, as opposed to the essential oils? I recall a murder mystery that involved a bottle of almond liqueur that hadn’t been used in years. Did anyone die drinking your non-cloudy ouzo? No? Well then, never mind. 
Not dead yet!
That occurred to me, too. For the experiment with the second glass, I used Science on it and shook up the bottle!
It wasn’t just you.
So, the second drink louched?
That’s what I keep reading it as too.
No. See post #5.
And you other people should invest in reading glasses. I’ve never seen multi posts before from folks who couldn’t read the thread title, and needed to share.