[Great Hall of Rockwall] BAR: legal American Absinthe

[Tanya Fried]

Kelli Quinn wrote:
> 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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>   
should we all put in a little toward a shared bottle of the stuff? 
Sounds like great fun for around the fire pit!!!
Hugs and kisses
Tanya