Fairy Dust - All About Absinthe
The summer before my freshman year of college, one of my best friends made out with his beautiful, 30-year-old Swedish house sitter. All it took was Jamiroquai’s Traveling Without Moving and one shot each of a drink called absinthe.
Fortune might not favor all of us like it once did my friend, but this is not to say absinthe cannot play host to a good night. You probably have heard the stories from friends, or possibly even tried it yourself. Legend has it that this green, anis-flavored drink makes you hallucinate after a glass or two. This is true, but not so true.
History
Unlike other alcoholic drinks, absinthe does not just have a vibe to it, but an entire lifestyle surrounding its use. Back in his day, Vincent Van Gogh would stay up all night sipping it, using his own paint as a chaser. Today, Marilyn Manson has been known to take a few swigs between songs on stage. You may remember Kylie Minogue as the green fairy Ewan McGregor sees after trying absinthe in Moulin Rouge. In normal situations, many claim the drink just brings a normal drunk. If you tried it in the states, there are two reasons this would happen most of the time. They do sell another green drink of the same flavor in some American liquor stores under the name Absente. This drink substitutes the key ingredient of absinthe - wormwood - which provides the alleged psychoactive effects. The other common mistake is that the drink is usually not prepared correctly by someone who has never tried it before.
Preparation
One traditional way to prepare the drink involves a specially designed slotted spoon. The absinthe is poured into the glass, and the spoon, with a sugar cube on top, is held over it. Then, ice-cold water is poured or dripped over the sugar until the drink is diluted from 3:1 to 5:1. The components of absinthe that are not soluble in water will come out and cloud the drink. This is what allows the herbs within to “blossom” and brings out many of the flavors hidden by the overpowering taste of the anis. There are many sites on the internet dedicated to the proper preparation of absinthe, and there are quite a few variations. But preparations aside, absinthe is technically illegal to bring into America, and naturally there is no commercial producer in the country. According to www.feeverte.com, there is no actual crime in the possession of absinthe, only the production, sale, and importation of it. Good luck deciding how to swing that one, but I have seen many bottles of absinthe that somehow made it into the states.
Effects
The website also warns that absinthe in no way makes you see things. This common belief is usually attributed to old poetry and paintings depicting the drink as a powerful elixir that will make you see fairies and other magical images. Still, if you have prepared the glass of absinthe correctly and are using the proper drink in the first place, you should have a very interesting drunk. One friend of mine claims he chased a green dot for five minutes. Like most substances, your expectation of the result largely influences the actual effect. The exotic feeling of drinking absinthe might be more real than any hallucinations. While experts might try to downplay the trip, I have yet to find evidence pointing to the fact that absinthe prohibits you from making out with hot, Swedish house sitters. In fact, as of yet I only see strong evidence of the contrary. Now there’s a marketing gold mine if I’ve ever come across one.
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November 25, 2007
RE: Absinthe
The manufacturers of “new absinthe†claim that they are in compliance with a European Commission ruling that no foodstuff should contain more than 9 parts per million (ppm) of a terpenoid compound called thujone. Perhaps to raise the titillation for the current product, and to increase sales, they now claim that “old absinthe†also had very little thujone in it! Based on the content of essential oils in wormwood, Artemisia absinthium, and Roman wormwood, Artemisia pontica; modern analyses of terpenoids therein; and the amounts of dried herbs actually employed; it has been calculated that a typical 1885 industrial-scale absinthe from Pontalier, France, contained as much as 260 ppm thujone and 90 ppm thujyl alcohol (with similar toxicity), indicating a total equivalent to 350 ppm.
Supposedly the drink now being promoted also has much reduced levels of several other terpenoids that were characteristic constituents in old absinthe because the current producers have either missed the importance of, or intentionally avoided, a form of steam distillation which was key to the manufacture of old absinthe. Steam distillation greatly affects the composition of the product. In the 19th century process the dried herbs were steeped overnight in 85% alcohol. About one-half volume of water was added prior to heating the pot to begin distillation. Current distillation of alcoholic extracts without this critical addition of water is thus inconsistent with the manufacture of old absinthe. Likewise, it should be noted that the application of fractional distillation with new absinthe is also at odds with published descriptions of the French industrial batchwise process dating from the eighteen hundreds.
The toxicity of thujone, or any other compound, depends upon both the amount and the time, i.e. how much and how long. There is ample evidence to indicate that high doses of thujone, thujyl alcohol, fenchone (from fennel), and pinocamphone (from hyssop) — constituents in the essential oils of old absinthe and chemically related to camphor — over a short time period will all evoke convulsions and hallucinations in experimental animals. Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge there are no published studies on the medical effects of smaller amounts of thujone, or of chronic exposure to 9 ppm thujone.
Wilfred Niels Arnold Ph.D.
Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
University of Kansas Medical Center
Kansas City, Kansas 66160 - 7421
Its quite apparent that Mr. Arnold is paid off somehow by the Czech absinthe industry. He is on every absinthe related website, every absinthe blog, every absinthe news article pushing his thujone level hype. Its understandable since Czech absinthes rely upon advertising their high thujone levels. Regardless of which side of the thujone debate is correct, many Czech absinthes simply taste like crap.
http://absintheman.blogspot.com/
absinthe is now legal in atlanta
YOOOO ABSINTHE ON THE REAL LEGAL IN NY BIATCHEZ
Even if you get a hold of this so called “real”, Czech absinthe, you will not halluciate…when you’ve got the amount of thujone required to hallucinate, you’ll probably be dying from alcohol intoxication…
The perk of absinth is the high alcohol content (normally 60-80% of the volume)
The reason people believe absinth can cause hallucinations is that a lot of artists and authors liked it back in the late 19th/early 20th century…and as you know, these guys knew how to describe stuff in an enticing way. Also, many of them were raging alcoholics suffering from delirium tremens…wich will give you hallicinations.
Also, adding some form of opium to the Absinth was not unusual back then…
Furthermore, the spoon and the sugar is not how people drank absinth back in the day…that’s a ceremony invented by the Czech absinth-bars.
Don’t get me wrong here. I love Absinth. But the only effect one might hope for is getting fall-down drunk (And in that case, Absinth delivers)