I’ve been thinking I’ll give bottles of absinthe as Christmas presents this year. Absinthe has that je ne sais quoi that you just can’t find in a gift card.
When I was living in London, I sampled more than a few rarities. Mostly for the novelty, truth be told. Out of all my experiences, all I can say is that the best part is caramelizing sugar in a spoon full of absinthe and letting letting drops of the burning liquid fall on the table; that looks damn cool.
The actual shot is disgustingly licorichey (to my palate at least), and even the addition of bulbing hot sugar doesn’t soothe it all that much. Certainly never knew it to have any properties that a stiff glass of regular alcohol wouldn’t have… no hallucinations or other drug like reactions.
I can, however, say that for whatever reason Abstinhe may potentiate pot in ways that normal alcohol seems not to. One of the guys I was studying with in London had a few shots and then smoked a joint. His girlfriend came over to our flat to visit with him, but he was so thoroughly out of it that he didn’t recognize her when he saw her, and although we kept reminding him, he kept forgetting that she was sitting in the next room (why on earth she waited a couple hours for him to sober up is beyond me). He was both a regular drinker and a regular smoker, and regularly combined them as well. That reaction, however, was novel. Now, I haven’t tried absinthe with any other chemicals myself, but judging from the demonstration I received, I wouldn’t mix it with anything else unless you were among people who you knew and trusted.
I’ve had it in Eastern Europe several times. I like the ritual with the carmelized sugar, etc., but I’m not sure if I ever felt any special side effects. A couple of times I thought I might be hallucinating a little bit (seeing something out of the corner of your eye type stuff, not green fairy type stuff), but I may just have been drunk. It is a fabulous way to get incredibly drunk incredibly fast, though, and you don’t always realize how fast it’s happening.
Cite?
My flatmates and I tried it when I was living in the UK. One of my flatmates had brought it back from Prague, I think, or maybe Paris. Honestly, I couldn’t drink enough of it to get any sort of buzz off it - it’s quite possibly the vilest thing I’ve ever tasted. I think kellner’s description (pastis’s angry hobo cousin) is accurate, but also imagine a strong dose of gasoline. I tried it with sugar, I tried it with fruit squash (hmm, maybe the absinthe had more of an effect than I thought), but nothing helped. It’s a shame, too - I was really looking forward to seeing what Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec saw. However, it is entirely possible that the stuff I had was just cheap tourist crap (especially knowing my flatmate).
You just bring it in like you would any other bottle of liquor. Now, I have no idea if you’d be in big trouble if caught. I would think the worst that would happen to you is they’d confiscate it and leave it at that. But that’s just speculation.
Speaking of, here in Chicago there’s a traditional old man’s drink called Jeppson’s Mallort which is basically a wormwood schnapps. It tastes like pure wormwood, and if anyone has ever had wormwood tea, you’d recognize the flavor right away. It’s the bitterest substance I have ever tasted.
So how is this for sale here exactly? Is thujone not normally extracted when using wormwood to flavor alcohol, or what? Also, the wormwood tea that I have here (bought here, in a Polish grocery) lists thujone amounts on the label, so that stuff obviously contains thujone and is available. Perhaps it’s not legally being sold, I don’t know.
It’s ok, no one seems to have made that pun so far. But then again, absinthe of evidence is not evidence of absinthe.
This was true until Hallmark released a card saturated with thujone as part of their “Tender Toxins” series. I sent a lovely thallium-adorned “Missing You” card to one of my ex-girlfriends, but she never responded.
I tried some in the Czech republic a couple of years ago. Two shots of licorice-y drink, almost like original not-cherry NyQuil in flavor.
This was after a few good Czech beers, and the shots of absinthe were doubles (the benefit of having a generous Czech-speaking friend with me)… but that was the first time in my life I was literally seeing double. Goddamn freaky. I also lost a small part of the night after that. I don’t think I’ll ever be doing that again. There’s a good chance it was just the overwhelming amount of alcohol, but I’ve been really drunk before and never seen double, just sort of passed out. So I can’t really say.
I had some at a halloween party a couple years ago. I dunno how it managed to make it into the states, but I was curious so I gave it a shot. They held a sugar cube over the glass & poured it on the cube, then they lit the cube on fire. The drink was OK, kind of had a licorice taste, but the presentation was awesome! It didn’t get me especially messed up or anything, but I only had that one glass of it before returning to conventional beverages. I am guessing it’s inebriating powers are overstated somewhat.
This stuff was so vile, I took one shot and went and threw up almost immediately after. Tasted so incredibly bad it just made me upchuck. Felt better after it was out and I brushed my teeth.
I started a thread about absinthe earlier this year to ask what was available in Canada. I travelled through New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Despite the information I cite in that link, there was only one label that I could find in any of the Provincial Liquor Stores: Absente. And upon reading the label, it says that it is the first absinthe that is legal in America; it appears that the traditional wormwood was replaced with a substitute (called Southern Wormwood, but presumably not containing thujone). It is also lower in alcohol (110 proof instead of 140 proof). It came with a cool spoon, but I am still assuming that this is not the real stuff. If anyone knows of any genuine absinthe that is available in the US, I’d love to hear about it.
I’m under the impression that, while there is an effect to be had from thujone, it’s concentration with respect to the alcohol is such that you’ll be bombed into oblivion on the booze before the thujone has any appreciable effect.
Further, it has been speculated that the lore of absinthe’s effects might be attributable to contamination by random chemical through shoddy equipment, processes and ingredients used in the distillation process.
As far as the modern absinthe market is concerned, I think there is a very wide range of quality available today. The worst “Absinthe” today is little more than ethanol mixed with food colouring and flavouring. It’s usually bright green and is what you’ll usually find on the shelves in the average bar. Good absinthe is properly distilled with traditional ingredients and is much less prevalent.
I’ve had it a few times. The first time, it certainly did something to me: I spent several hours on my back in a bed, watching the ceiling move around, but not sleeping for a second. That may just have been due to me drinking too much too fast, though.
I am in the US. No comment. I think that it’s not illegal to posses Absinthe in the US (although that’s questionable), but the actual importation is illegal.
I tried the “Van Gogh” brand absinth-it is very expensive, and VERY bitter-not a nice drink at all.
So could a domestic company legally make absinthe for sale? Obviously it’s availability would vary according to state. Control state (like PA) liquor authorities could keep it off the shelves simply by not buying any.
Me and a friend drank some, only a shot or two each one night and it didn’t seem to have any effect until we both start getting the giggles and laughed for a half hour solid. I’ve had it at other times when already drunk and never noticed anything too mad about it.
For those asking about bringing it in - I believe it’s just like any other alcohol. When I flew out of Prague back to Canada I had two small bottles (maybe 200-300mL each, not sure) and they were declared at customs, etc with no problem. I could have brough back up to 1L for my own consumption, IIRC.