from the Army Times
By JASON WATKINS | The Military Times
Absinthe - once the elixir of artists, poets and ne’er-do-wells – is making an American comeback. Thanks to a law that went into effect last year, you no longer have to darken the door of a shady European pub while on liberty just to try the stuff.
It tastes either like a medley of aromatic herbs or like licorice and gasoline, depending on whom you ask, and was banned in the U.S. for the better part of a century because it contains trace amounts of thujone, an active compound in wormwood, one of absinthe’s key ingredients and the supposed cause of its psychotropic power. (Legend has it that artist Vincent Van Gogh was under its spell when he dispatched his ear.) But multiple studies showed the levels of thujone are too minimal to be classified as a drug – you’d die from alcohol poisoning long before you’d ride the yellow submarine – so the ban was lifted in 2007.
Still, the stuff packs a Chuck Liddell-like punch.
“It does hit you very differently and much more quickly than other spirits because of the alcohol content, but it’s a far cry from a hallucinogenic effect,” says distiller Lance Winters, who has spent more than a decade perfecting a recipe for St. George Spirits in California. He also spent nearly eight years in the Navy, much of it aboard the carrier Enterprise as a machinist’s mate second class.
Packing a 120-proof wallop, the stuff is a distilled liquor that’s best served watered down or in cocktails. Specially made kits and slotted spoons for dissolving sugar are hitting the market, and a variety of distilleries are reviving centuries-old recipes. Even rocker Marilyn Manson has thrown his hat into the absinthe ring with his own formula, called Mansinthe.
So does a visit with “the green fairy” live up to the legend?
“No, I think it’s hyped up a little bit,” says Army Sgt. 1st Class Michael Hawks, who encountered it while on vacation earlier this year in Prague, Czech Republic. “I’d always heard that it was a mildly hallucinogenic alcohol, but I’d never seen it.”
His drink was set on fire by the bartender (a no-no among absinthe purists) and downed like a shot (another no-no).
“I threw up and then I went home,” he says.
“The typical, legendary absinthe-induced hallucinations are all complete fabrications,” Winters says.
With all of its theatrics and lore, absinthe might be the new trendy drink, but it shouldn’t drive you to self-mutilation anytime soon.
