Janna, Allen and The Green Fairy

La fée verte. The Green Fairy.

A mystique surrounds the drink that earned this moniker: absinthe.

Bohemians. Hemingway. Absinthe houses. Art. Literature. Hallucinations and madness.

I had to try it.

One of the ingredients in absinthe is wormwood (other ingredients include fennel, and the anise which helps to give it a very distinctive scent and taste) which contains compounds (thujones) once thought to produce mind-altering effects- described by some as a “clear-headed drunkenness”. This theory has subsequently been debunked- most of the mind-altering effects of absinthe were actually caused by consuming large quantities of the high-proof alcohol. However, many enthusiasts still ascribe a unique sensory experience to the drink, whether from the ingredients of the wormwood or due to the other herbs in the mixture.

Absinthe was banned in the early 1900s in the United States, due to its purported negative effects. It was finally allowed to be legally produced and imported in 2007, after a very long hiatus, with the restriction that the drink must be thujone-free (damn- I hope that the other stuff in absinthe will do its magic).

The additional history, social effects, and culture surrounding absinthe are fascinating, but too complex to discuss here. However, I will describe my personal experience with the stuff, which is not nearly as complex.

Allen gave me a bottle of Lucid (one of the first absinthes imported into the United States after 2007) for Christmas. It is contained in a beautiful dark bottle with two green cat eyes imprinted on it. Along with the absinthe, there were two traditional absinthe glasses, and a silver absinthe spoon.

We spent months trying to find the perfect time which to drink it. No occasion seemed special enough to celebrate with absinthe. Finally, one night last month, I just opened up the bottle. We celebrated the time-honored absinthe ritual in the kitchen of the house in Waresboro.

This was not exactly what I had envisioned: sipping the drink in some sophisticated setting, and enjoying deep and meaningful conversations as the effects of the absinthe descended upon us. But we don’t seem to have any absinthe houses in our neighborhood. And, anyways, we were feeling adventurous that night.

I managed to clear a spot on the kitchen counter, and placed our two new absinthe glasses down (A little additional trivia: absinthe glasses have a characteristic shape- the bulbous part at the bottom hold the requisite amount of absinthe, while the top part of the glass holds the ice cold water). I found the box of sugar cubes that I had saved for the occasion. A few were missing- the kids apparently like to snack on them. I searched for an appropriately elegant carafe from which to pour the ice water. All I could find was a Mason jar. The prospect of preparing absinthe with a big jelly jar cracked us up, and we had to take a picture (see above).

Having assembled all of the necessary implements, the ritual commenced. I placed the slotted spoon over the glass, set a sugar cube on top, and slowly dripped the ice water from the Mason jar over the sugar cube and into the glass containing the absinthe. It wasn’t perfect, but the liquid turned a cloudy opalescent greenish color- the classic louche , which brings out some of the flavors of the drink that have been overpowered by the anise, and looks really cool.

We approached the mixture with trepidation.

The aroma: definitely a lot of anise, and other aromatic herbs that I couldn’t readily identify.

We raised our glasses and drank. We looked at each other. We took another cautious sip.

I finally spoke up and stated the obvious: the stuff tastes like shit.

This must be the well-kept secret of absinthe drinkers. How were we supposed to get this down? No refined sipping for us. We just shot the stuff in one great big gulp.

We thought that perhaps that we had made an error in preparation on the first go-round, which may have accounted for the foulness of the mixture. So we made another attempt. This time we used more absinthe and less water. I dripped the water more slowly over the sugar cube. The result seemed a bit better this time. This may have been due to the additional sugar cubes that I finally dumped into the glass; it could also be that the effects of high-proof alcohol on two relative teetotalers were beginning to take effect.

Although we began to think that the drink might actually start tasting good after a glass or two (or three or four) more, we elected to retire to the couch to contemplate absinthe’s magical effect on the senses. Instead of “clear-headed drunkenness”, we fell dead asleep on the sofa, the cat dozing between us.

The epilogue to this story is similarly anticlimactic. In order to counteract the “potency” (my nice word for the fact that it tastes like crap) of the absinthe, we used one of the drink recipes supplied with the bottle: the Mint Muse (below). Allen liked this concoction; I was unimpressed.

I am still open to enjoying absinthe, and I am committed to enjoying it in the traditional way, as I am a purist. However, I am thinking about trying the famous “Death in the Afternoon” cocktail (below) - any drink concocted by Ernest Hemingway deserves attention.

So I do hope to receive a visit from The Green Fairy at a later date. I will keep you posted.

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The Mint Muse (From the Lucid website)

1 1/2 oz. LUCID®
• 2 oz. Pineapple juice
• Muddled mint leaves and lime wedge
• Topped with Sprite or 7-Up
• Garnish = mint sprig

Muddle 6-8 mint leaves with the lime wedge along with the LUCID®. Add ice, the 2 oz. of pineapple juice and shake briefly. Top with Sprite or 7-up and add the mint sprig.
This name is a play on "The Green Muse"

Death in the Afternoon (From http://www.blogger.com/www.absintheonline.com)


“A recipe verified in the 1935 humoristic celebrities' cocktail book titled 'So Red the Nose, or Breath in the Afternoon' edited by the famous journalist and author Sterling North and Carl Kroch. Hemingway wrote: "This was arrived at by the author and three officers of the H.M.S. Danae after having spent seven hours overboard trying to get Capt. Bra Saunders' fishing boat off a bank where she had gone with us in a N.W. gale." It seems highly unlikely that Hemingway would have drunk this concoction if given a choice. In most cases the mixture ruins both ingredients, which would have annoyed him. In this case, they most likely took advantage of the mixture to ward off the effects of a bad day in rough water, as champagne was considered a sea-sickness 'cure'. A lighter absinthe is best, such as the Pernot distillery's White Fairy. - 1 jigger of absinthe added to a champagne flute- Add iced champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness.”