The Herbology of Absinthe
It’s festival time in Edinburgh again, the place is full of tourists, artists and performers. There is comedy, theatre, cabaret, dance, music, magic, circuses, literature, cultural displays, street acts spitting fire whilst riding unicycles backwards. The ‘Burgh’s population doubles with visitors from the four corners and general revelry abounds. And who doesn’t love a chat about disreputable substances? So let’s talk Absinthe.
Although it was made all over Europe in its day, this spirit is most closely associated with France in the second half of the 19th century, and the alluringly degenerate and decadent fin de siècle artists like Verlaine, Toulouse-Lautrec, Manet, van Gogh, and Zola. With an alcohol by volume of 65-75%, Absinthe is no laughing matter, and the inclusion of Wormwood and other strong tasting herbs would only accentuate this. Much is made of its thujone content, a constituent of wormwood, but the levels are between ten and a hundred times too low for anything interesting to result from thujone. It might enhance things a bit, but the effects should be, pharmacologically, negligible. But, absinthe is strange stuff, and while certainly much of its popularity in past times and peculiar effects on the drinker are due to blinding intoxication, there is more to it than that. What exactly, who knows. And does it really matter? No one drinks absinthe for the taste.
Typically, it contains Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium), Sweet Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), and Aniseed (Pimpinella animus) as a basic trinity, and many others maybe added, commonly including Angelica (Angelica archangelica), Lemonbalm (Melissa officinalis), Hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis), Mint (Mentha ssp.), and Star Anise (Illicium verum). It is made by steeping the herbs in a distilled spirit, the best ones being made from grape eau de vie - and then redistilling the resultant herbal liquid. Proper gin is made the same way, vi double distilling. Incidentally, gin made this way possesses lively, dynamic, bewitching aromatics; gin made more cheaply (that is not to say with a cheaper price tag) using a blend of prepared extracts added to neutral spirits has a flat and rather lifeless flavour. With absinthe, though, there is another step: it must be coloured green. While it can be done artificially, and is/was in cheap absinthes, traditionally the colour comes from steeping nettles, mint, hyssop, or other green herbs in the distillate briefly, until the desired colour is obtained. Then the product is ready to drink.
Drinking it is a matter of some theatre, involving putting a sugar cube on a delicate little slotted absinthe spoon and pouring water over it to sweeten and dilute the drink to one’s taste. Once upon a time, there were ornate fountains in Paris cafes specifically for watering one’s absinthe. As water is added, Absinth louches, or clouds, further adding to the ritual. And some people just drank it straight. Presumably though, like the drinkers in London’s Gin Lane, they did not do this for very long. Some of the drink’s seeming toxicity, especially latterly, would have been due to producers of the cheap stuff using copper salts to colour it green, and the antimony trichloride to make it louche.
The Green Fairy began its life, as legend recalls, sometime in the 18th century as a health tonic. Indeed, in a filthy early modern city, with little or no sanitation, contaminated wells, toxic pollution from unregulated trade and industry, and streets clogged with the detritus of every human and animal life therein, a bit of the bitter and anti-parasitic wormwood would have been just the thing. Add in the other gut friendly, anti-infective, anti-parasitic herbs and, dancing fairies aside, you’re on to a winner. Add in the dancing fairies and a dash of depravity and you have the stuff of legends.
While Absinthe was banned in most European countries in the early 20th Century, in Britain it is not happily once again legal, and can be purchased from nice shops that sell booze, cocktail bars, and of course, online. Have a great festy!