Absente!

[DVD Burner]

Have never done it and it has been a topic on eplaya for years.

There is plenty of it around me though.

I think I shall try it tomorrow.


Any suggestions?
What should I expect?


or, "what say you?".

[gyre]

Clip a 'return to' tag to your clothes first.
Just in case.

[mdmf007]

I got to deliver a few of them Self Addressed Intoxicated Persons last year!! youd be surprised at how helpful people ae with drunks, as long as they are the mellow kind. Pissed off angry drunks arent nice to deal with.

[mojo]

I've recently seen Absente and a brand called Lucid on the shelf in my local booze store. Lucid had wormwood listed as an ingredient, Absente had something like "petitte wormwood" or "lesser wormwood" or some such listed.

Has anybody tried either of these? They are expensive!

[Teo del Fuego]

What should I expect?

very very little, if you are referring to absinthe. First, the legends of the old absinthe were highly exaggerated. Second, the stuff you buy now has none of the potency of the former. Active ingredient of old was found in the wormwood that used to be an ingredient.

[gyre]

I thought that was a myth?
There is a whole procedure for diluting and chilling it , isn't there?
I think the ritual must have a lot to do with it.

My understanding is that the wormwood story was started by spirit suppliers competing with it.
The potency is high, as I remember, anyway.
I think the poets always diluted it.
It seems quite ritualistic.

[thirt33n]

It's great stuff. I always keep a bottle. I've found it not too different from any other alcohol in it's effect. Thing is, if mixed and sipped properly it's an all DAY drink and after drinking it all DAY your buzz is stepped up slowly and it resembles those playa slow building techno/house/rave whatever you call'em parts of those songs that builds for an eternity and then you finally just explode out of your skin and lay on the dust like that baboon that got all fucked up in the movie 'The Fly'.

You order it from europe. shipping is about the same price as the order.
better to order multiple bottles.

http://www.absinth24.net/

biatch

[Ugly Dougly]

Absinthe? It's like vodka except it is green and tastes funny.
It doesn't make me crazy; that was my own doing.

[DVD Burner]

Well there are cartons of this



in front of me.

What do you think of this and how you think it is?

[AntiM]

It tastes like the "real" thing ... aka awful. I like it in OJ with apricot brandy and rum. You can get pretty drunk fairly quickly, but Everclear does a fine job of that also. Green Fairy? Hype and more hype. I buy wormwood extract at the good earth store and dump it in. Likely doesn't change a thing, but the placebo effect is kinda fun.

[mdmf007]

its an acquired taste

[gyre]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absinthe
http://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic. ... t=absinthe
http://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic. ... t=absinthe
http://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic. ... t=absinthe
http://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic. ... t=absinthe
Some info about the variety of spices and possible effect
http://www.gumbopages.com/food/beverages/absinthe.html
http://www.wormwoodsociety.org/

[DVD Burner]

Oh hey, thanks!

I haven't had time yet but I will.

[mdmf007]

thats quite a stretch

[ZaphodBurner]

Absente is fake. It's like drinking an anise-flavored Jolly Rancher. It's tasty, but, it's not at all real.

Lucid is the real deal; actually moreso than the fake so-called "absinthe" thujone-juice that people are importing from Europe. It's more true-to-the original than La Fee and some of the other brands, (La Fee uses artificial coloration, for example) and it's expensive but worth it.

I don't know if it's legal in Nevada, but it is in California, Washington, Louisiana, etc.

Lucid, if you don't burn the sugar, tastes and feels almost exactly like the quality 19th-century-era distilled absinthe recipes you can find on the internet. Without revealing my cards here, in the words of the Terminator, "I have detailed files."

I drank a fifth of hausgemacht 1855-recipe absinthe in three days in New Orleans again this year and I don't know how many times I had to tell people including Europeans that you don't hallucinate. (And since it was double-distilled, I didn't get a hangover. And it's not bitter. And I didn't chop my ear off.)

The secret of Lucid is that the maker figured out that there was not nearly as much thujone in pre-ban absinthe as everybody thought. Lots of petite wormwood, which is a whole lot more expensive--you can buy both in Oregon and Washington, but petite isn't bitter and costs a bunch more because there aren't very many sources. Real absinthe uses both petite and grand wormwood. You don't need a shit-ton of thujone to have absinthe... you just need good wormwood and it absolutely must be distilled.

PM me if you want more information. There is as much difference between absinthe-drunk and vodka-drunk as there is between wine-drunk, beer-drunk, whiskey-drunk and tequila-drunk. It's pleasant and tasty and very strong, which is why you can really hurt yourself with it if you're not responsible.

-cx

[DaddyMassive]

I read something somewhere recently about how the Absinthe Van Gogh drank was the same as you can get now. There is no trippy ingredients to it as such.. you just get very drunk very quickly and quite hyperactive (well I do anyway) in a way you wouldn't expect from booze. Chances are 'back in the day' they were mixing their intoxicants and getting fucked up & Van Gogh was a nutter regardless of this lovely green drink.

The way I prepare it is>
1/2 tea spoon of sugar dipped in 'an amount' of Absinthe in a Martini glass.
Have a glass of water handy and light the spoon.
Hold the spoon over something none flammable (a plate or the water)
When the sugar's bubbling, pick up the glass of water with your other hand, stir the flaming spoon into the Absinthe and then douse the flaming glass with an equal amount of water.
Drink & repeat

[mdmf007]

how many times to repeat?

[DaddyMassive]

Till you wake up.
If you can remember how many you've had you're not doing it right.

[ZaphodBurner]

Flaming absinthe is a recent tradition and it definitely darkens the flavor a bit. One advantage to it is that it dissolves the sugar quickly and completely, but it's a modernism. The absinthe snobs say "friends don't let friends burn absinthe." On the other hand, I don't think Van Gogh did absinthe body shots either, so call me a modernist I guess. I like to experiment.

The bartender at the absinthe joint in New Orleans had a really cool trick with a mostly-empty bottle of Lucid, a straw and a match, but, unfortunately, for -some reason- my memory of the event is blurred and I don't want to recommend something that might blow somebody up. (Unless of course I'm there to watch it, etc.)

-cx

[Thoth]

According to the FDA, alcoholic beverages must be thujone-free pursuant to 21 CFR 172.510.

TTB:

BACKGROUND

Generally, absinthe, or absinth, is a high alcohol content, anise-flavored distilled spirits product derived from certain herbs, including Artemisia absinthium, or wormwood. Wormwood [b]usually contains the substance thujone, which is purported to have hallucinogenic or psychotropic effects.[/b] Absinthe was popular in the late 19th century and early 20th century, particularly in France, and was often portrayed as an addictive and psychotropic beverage due to the presence of the substance thujone.[/quote]

TTB'S POLICY REGARDING THE USE OF THE TERM "ABSINTHE"

Thujone-Free.

We approve the use of the term "absinthe" on the label of a distilled spirits product and in related advertisements only if the product is "thujone-free" pursuant to the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) regulation at 21 CFR 172.510. Based upon the level of detection of FDA's prescribed method for testing for the presence of thujone, TTB considers a product to be "thujone-free" if it contains less than 10 parts per million of thujone. However, should the FDA set a new standard for "thujone-free," in accordance with 27 CFR 13.51, COLAs that are not in compliance with that revised standard will be revoked by operation of regulation

It is really great that the manufacturer of Lucid [u]recently[/u] "discovered" that absinthe had less than 10ppm thujone! That means that y'all drinking the same stuff as Van Gogh. He changed his mind of course, because he originally said:

"Using every bit of information I’ve processed over the past seven years, my calculations indicate that quality original Pontarlier labels [b]contained anywhere from 50-100mg/kg total thujone. [/b]I do agree that I feel that thujone is not the only player in the secondary effects, although I’m convinced it plays an important role. I also have some evidence that indicates that the presence of other essences and even manufacturing methods is influential"T.A. Breaux

[ygmir]

don't forget there were some wacky recipes for Absynth......including the addition of copper sulfate to make it greener......and poison you.......
I'd think some of the "secondary effects" could have been due to the particulars of certain brands....and contents therein.......

I drank it for the first time in Prague, in this really cool nightclub under a Roman clocktower......Don't remember anything until the sun was coming up and I was walking down some narrow alley that looked like a scene from Pinocchio......and a sinister fellow was cocking his pistol and pointing it at me........

I'm thinking, though, someone slipped a "Mickey" into my drink (s) in the club for nefarious reasons, but, didn't dose me high enough to floor me......just black me out.

I've tried several times since to repeat the effect on Absynth, and, not
had the same results......
I'm told the thujone, may or may not be hallucinogenic, there's no good data on that...

It's good to keep the experiment alive, though........