Absinthe: Round Two

Last night I had what I like to call a "Bonus Night." An unplanned night off in addition to my usual two, where I don't have to be productive if I don't feel like it. I thought I'd get in some quality WoW time and form a second opinion on Absinthe. I was hopeful that the Green Fairy would impress me more than it had initially. My opinion was certainly changed...

Over the course of probably four hours I had two tumbler-fulls. Almost immediately I started to get a headache. Not the usual kind from drinking, the one all the way in the back of your head. It was right up front, pulsing and sharp, in the middle of my forehead. And it stayed there the whole time. I stayed as true to the recipe as I could, but I was also trying to drink quickly. I simplified the process by just dumping the sugar cube into the glass and mixing it up with a spoon. No difference in taste, so that's a plus.

So, did I get drunk? Not really. True to legend, my body felt a little drunk, but my mind was clear. Clearly in pain, that is. If you can handle the taste long-term, and don't mind a headache like a brain-stab, then give Absinthe a try. That being said, I think everyone should try it at least once, just to say they have. It's a drink from olden times, and like all history, it's better if experienced firsthand.

My First Blog Post -or- Absinthe: A Review

A couple weeks ago, my pod-partner and I drank absinthe for the first time. I won't go into all the legal trouble that the "green fairy" has run into here in the 'States, but I've been looking forward to the day when I could finally taste this fabled drink. Years I've been waiting, my hopes soaring, imagining the hallucinogenic delights that awaited me thanks to the admissible thujone and wormwood levels. Visions of milky green draughts of magic. Did it live up to the hype?

No. Not really. While both Carl and I were expecting a soft, almost dream-like beverage best sipped slowly over a smoldering cigarette, what we got was very, very different.

The set-up alone was a hassle, as we didn't have the tools necessary for the professional absinthe connoisseur. In lieu of the slotted spoon - a wire strainer. The fountain dripping ice cold water - a water bottle sloppily poured. We did have sugar cubes, for all the difference that made.

What we ended up with was a cloudy, green, luke warm drink, that tasted like mint cough syrup, and begged to be swallowed slowly, if only because the alcohol content (62%) made gulping impossible. And there were grains of sugar piling on the bottom of the glass.

Suffice it to say that we were disappointed. This particular absinthe, reverse-engineered from an original bottle by T.A. Breaux, is the one I'd been waiting years to try. Maybe my hopes were just too high. Or maybe those unfortunate drinkers in bygone eras who supposedly went crazy from the drink were actually just mad with disappointment.