Absinthe...The green fairy is back

Recently, I was a guest at one of those relaxingly long dinner parties. It started with cocktails before sundown, ended well into the night. Just as the evening reached its ebb, I pounced and announced that nightcaps were mandatory. Absinthe nightcaps.

After all, I had a deadline.

Actually, I’d been curious about the notorious “green fairy” since June after spying a bottle on the cordials aisle of the ABC store.

Absinthe’s  dominant flavor is anise – or licorice. The clear, chartreuse-colored liquor – long banned here and in Europe – was wildly popular from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s.

It was a particular favorite among the bohemian set in turn-of-the-century Paris, a pack that included Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Picasso, Manet, Toulouse-Lautrec and Van Gogh. The drink was thought to elevate creative powers, and artists immortalized it in paint and print. In 1887, Toulouse-Lautrec painted a pensive Van Gogh with a glass of absinthe on the table before him. The same year, Van Gogh painted “Still Life With Absinthe” and a year later wrote in a letter to his brother, Theo, “I have a view of the Rhône – the iron bridge at Trinquetaille – in which the sky and the river are the colour of absinthe … .”

 But many became addicted to the high-test elixir; some believe it led Van Gogh to slice off part of his ear. It was considered a dangerous substance and was blamed for a decline in morals and civilization in general. By the end of World War I it had been banned in most of Western Europe and across the United States.

The best (and most entertaining) account of the effect of pre-ban absinthe that I could find is from a volume titled “The Gentleman’s Companion, Being an Exotic Drinking Book, or Around the World with Jigger, Beaker and Flask.” In an aside, author Charles H. Baker Jr. writes, “… perhaps we had better explain that taken in steady doses over a considerable period of time, it does nibble the keen edge off the brain until a man becomes a sorry sort of thing; aimless, listless, and generally – shockingly – lacking.” The culprit was thought to be wormwood.

Absinthe is made from a blend of herbs, including hyssop, fennel, anise and, in pre-ban days, an extract from the leaves of a certain variety of wormwood called artemesia absinthium, or grand wormwood. The wormwood plant itself has greenish-gray foliage that looks somewhat like our own Dusty Miller plants, although it is much taller.

Grand wormwood contains thujone, a substance once thought to be hallucinogenic. Recent chemical analysis has found that the absinthe of old contained only trace amounts of thujone, and the amount of thujone in absinthe approved for U.S. import is extremely low.

In fact, the absinthe we were to sip on this summer night contained none. Our  bottle of Absente: Absinthe Refined clearly stated that the “single difference is we replaced the notorious botanical Wormwood with a less bitter cousin, Southern Wormwood, also known as 'petit absinthe.’ ”

The bottle came with a flat, slotted spoon tucked into the box, an essential piece of paraphernalia for making the classic “absinthe drip,” perhaps the most popular way to partake.

As per directions we found on the box, on the Internet and in our own old, musty barkeepers’ guides, we decanted several drams of absinthe into a chilled glass. We placed the slotted spoon across the top of the glass and a single sugar cube on top of that. Then, we patiently dripped cold water over the cube, drop by drop, until the cube was completely dissolved.

During this process, the clear liquid turned almost opalescent and cloudy. This is called the “louche,” and the quality of the louche – neither opaque nor transparent – is one of the hallmarks of a quality absinthe.

The drink completed, it was time for a taste.

Straight up, absinthe is monstrously strong at 110 proof; it clears the sinuses and numbs the tongue. Tempered with sugar and ice cold water – we opted for about a 1:3 ratio of absinthe to water – it delivers a pleasant anise taste that is more complex than that of its cousin, Pernod.

This drink is a true “sipper” that takes about an hour to finish. It makes sense that back in the day in Paris, the “green hour” started around the time of the American happy hour and continued into the night.

But, like whiskey, absinthe is an acquired taste. One guest gagged at the first drop and returned to her sauvignon blanc.

The elimination of the grand wormwood and/or miniscule levels of thujone hasn’t dispelled thrill seekers, and today’s newly legal absinthe has attained a cult following. There’s an absinthe museum on the outskirts of Paris that displays Toulouse-Lautrec’s absinthe spoon. In the city proper, once the green fairy’s ground zero, is an absinthe boutique. And a virtual absinthe museum buzzes along on the Internet.

The latest price list from Virginia liquor stores offers two types of absinthe: Kubler Absinthe, a one-liter bottle, $59.95; and the bottle we dented, Absente: Absinthe Refined, 750 milliliters for $41.95 .

On the Web site for the Wormwood Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to all things absinthe, the Kubler was rated slightly higher than the Absente. But many, many brands are now being made. If you are interested in ordering another brand, contact the manager of your local ABC store.

Lorraine Eaton, (757) 446-2697, lorraine.eaton@pilotonline.com