[Great Hall of Rockwall] BAR: legal American Absinthe

[Kelli Quinn]

Thujone-free absinthe made especially for the US market. Sounds like it's 
going to be expensive (over $50 a bottle!).

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/business/yourmoney/29goods.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=yourmoney&adxnnlx=1178111091-j7ZhCURbr9IAacqw6m94PA

One question. If as the story says, the thujone and chemicals in the 
original 19th cen. absinthe could not have been what caused all those 
hallucinations, what did?


Absinthe: The American Remix


By BRENDAN I. KOERNER
Published: April 29, 2007
IN praise of the opaque green liqueur beloved by his creative 
contemporaries, Oscar Wilde once posed the rhetorical question, “What 
difference is there between a glass of absinthe and a sunset?”

The prosaic answer, at least for Americans, has long been one of legality: 
sunsets can be freely enjoyed, but absinthe was forbidden because it 
contained thujone, a potentially toxic compound.

Intrepid drinkers have worked around the ban by ordering imported bottles 
off the Internet or smuggling them back from Eastern Europe. Now they have a 
third, less dodgy option: Lucid, which is being marketed as the first legal, 
genuine American absinthe in nearly a century.

Lucid is the debut product from Viridian Spirits of Manhasset, N.Y., founded 
in early 2006. According to Jared Gurfein, Viridian’s president, the 
company’s first order of business was to contact Ted Breaux, a chemist known 
for his detailed analyses of vintage absinthes.

A New Orleans native, Mr. Breaux now produces absinthes in Saumur, France, 
using the same recipes and ingredients — including the plant Artemisia 
absinthium, or grand wormwood — employed by his 19th-century predecessors.

Mr. Gurfein asked Mr. Breaux whether he could produce an absinthe that would 
pass regulatory muster with American authorities — meaning that it would not 
contain thujone. Mr. Breaux said that would be fairly easy, given his belief 
that, contrary to popular opinion, 19th century absinthes contained 
relatively little thujone to begin with — less than 5 parts per million, 
according to his tests, rather than much higher estimates that have been 
bandied about.

Still, Mr. Breaux knew that removing thujone entirely might harm the taste. 
“I had to get a handle on the whole thujone issue without compromising the 
character and the flavor of the drink,” he said. To accomplish this, Mr. 
Breaux blended the grand wormwood with green anise and sweet fennel from 
Europe, instead of using more-affordable imports from East Asia. Using herbs 
from Europe, absinthe’s native continent, he said, gives the drink an 
earthier essence.

Mr. Breaux also had to keep the American palate in mind while developing 
Lucid. “In the U.S., anise is a sort of a strange flavor,” he said. “We 
don’t get a lot of exposure to it.” So Mr. Breaux made sure that Lucid had a 
slightly cleaner, crisper taste than its European peers.

Several Lucid prototypes were ready by last July; Mr. Gurfein and his staff 
at Viridian used an office taste test to select the formula they would take 
to market. That formula was then sent to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and 
Trade Bureau, a division of the Treasury Department, which checked the 
absinthe for traces of thujone and other impurities and approved it. The 
bureau also reviewed Lucid’s bottle, paying close attention to the words on 
the back.

“They wanted to make sure that we were going to market this responsibly, 
that we didn’t intend to piggyback on some of the myths,” Mr. Gurfein said. 
Absinthe’s fabled reputation for causing hallucinations and madness has 
since been debunked.

While Lucid was awaiting regulatory approval in the United States, Mr. 
Breaux kept busy perfecting the production process. He uses antique copper 
stills, which were not built for speed. Scaling up production by a factor of 
100 over the prototyping phase, Mr. Breaux said, was a challenge, especially 
when it came to keeping the herbal flavor consistent from bottle to bottle.

Lucid will be available starting next month, priced at $59.95 for a 
750-milliliter bottle. A Web site, DrinkLucid.com, will soon post 
information on liquor stores that will carry the product.

I sampled the 124-proof liqueur last week, while watching the National 
Basketball Association playoffs. When diluted with water and a pinch of 
sugar, the absinthe’s taste is strong and pleasant. And the buzz has an odd 
way of focusing the mind — I’ve rarely been so entranced by the swish of a 
basketball net.



"I imagine I was always writing. Twaddle it was, too. But better far write 
twaddle or anything, anything, than nothing at all."

Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923)

Down the Rabbit Hole: downrabbit.blogspot.com

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