Absinthe

A while back I wrote excitedly about how nice it was to finally create a Sazerac cocktail in an authentic manner. In this case, authentic meant using absinthe rather than ouzo and Peychaud's bitters rather than Angostura.

Part of what makes the Sazerac a very particular whiskey cocktail is the insistence on that one kind of bitters and that one kind of anise-flavored liquor. I've talked enough about the bitters; what about the absinthe?

History

This is just too much. Read the Wikipedia entry. Just kidding. But absinthe does have an entertaining and exhausting history. Suffice to say, it was the drink of Nineteenth-Century France, and stands as an icon of the Belle Epoque, an era roughly coinciding with Victorian England ad characterized by urbanism in the world and realism, symbolism, impressionism, etc. in the arts.

Before that (and beyond as well), things get not contentious but murky. I don't wish to discuss the drink's origins. But most people think what certain movies have impressed upon us when we hear that word "absinthe," of dark dens, where poets and drug addicts furtively imbibed the poison. But that's mostly thanks to a large inheritance of propaganda. Absinthe in Nineteenth-Century, Belle-Epoque France was ubiquitous; everyone drank it, much like everyone in an American or English pub drinks beer today.

The problems arise firstly from the poetic hyperbole of such well-known names as Oscar Wilde, Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Verlaine, many of whom lived less-than-happy lives. But that is why absinthe is representative of the era, and that is why the Temperance Movement even arose, as well as why "pastoral" wine and its partisans joined in the fight against a single drink (before Prohibition later arrived). Absinthe was not a contagion but a symptom. For every one happy life we have recorded at that time, no matter the country, there are countless unhappy ones. Urban blight and industry and alcoholism were all converging in metropolitan France at the time; something had to be blamed.

Rant

The lasting legacy of the campaign to ban absinthe is multifarious. Some countries, like the U.S.A. still impose ridiculous bans on a chemical singled out for an irrelevant reason in an unscientific fashion. This is finally being overturned in certain places (France and Switzerland, for two). Another unfortunate but perhaps inevitable side product of the awakening of interest in a long-dead drink is deception.

Specifically, this deception is called Bohemian, or Czech, absinthe. It is unfortunate that some companies in that nascent democracy should be crucial to reviving interest in absinthe all while never making anything close to it. To the person who reads about the "effects" of Bohemian-Style "absinth," I say, a fool and his money (especially with today's exchange rates). Then and now, Czech absinthe is a product that coasts on the myth of a drink, but in no way resembles said drink. Unfortunately for them, the interest they sparked has led to intelligent and devoted people uncovering real recipes, and the market is off.

Information

The best places to purchase absinthe online are Liqueurs de France and Lion Absinthe Distribution. Both vendors are reliable and sell the real thing. For more information than I could possibly have the obsessiveness to write, there are La Fee Verte and The Wormwood Society.

Though wormwood figures prominently as a flavor, absinthe is an anise drink first and foremost. Other such drinks include ouzo, raki, arak, certain tsipouro, pastis, sambuca, and anisette.