Absinthe

Wow! There are allot of negative things in these reviews. Like all booze a lot of it is rot gut (Czech stuff). However if you are traveling to western Europe any time soon I highly recommend you look up a bar called Marsella in Barcelona. The absinthe is good and the atmosphere is authentic. Absinthe should not be bitter, it should be almost like tea if it made correctly and served correctly. In Spain there is also a brand called Obsello that is amazing. Unfortunately its really hard to find. It looks like there are getting into the business of selling absinthe to the English speaking world since they have a splash page up in English (I did a ...  Read the complete review

Although Absinthe has a scary reputation, the reality is a lot different. It is a highly alcoholic drink (45-68% Alcohol by volume) containing the herb wormwood and the psychoactive chemical thujone. Wormwood was used in Ancient Egypt and has been used as a treatment for Malaria. The latest Malaria treatments contain derivatives of absinthe as it reduces fever and digestive parasites. Wormwood is also good for your liver, for digestion and for your gall bladder. So there is a slim possibility the herbs in it counteract the alcohol as far as your body goes.... I also have found you do not get a hangover with it as you normally would had you drank a third of a ...  Read the complete review

Absinthe is an alcoholic liquer with one of the more colourful histories to its name. Much maligned for its potency, it still remains banned across many western countries and that which remains freely available in others has its contents strictly regulated. Absinthe is an emerald green liquer containing numerous herbal extracts themselves including wormwood. Its colour is derived from the presence of chlorophyl which gives it an extremely bitter flavour and is therefore usually diluted with water and sugar to increase its palatability, although personal taste comes into this I suppose...personally I think you would have to be insane to drink it without dilution. ...  Read the complete review

I first tried it in a new trendy bar in Oxford's Cowley Road (a kind of model-village Brixton for us provincial types). It was Sebor (I think), which is a little lower in alcohol (a paltry 60% - that's percent, not proof!!) than the two other main brands; Hills' (Czech) and La Fee (French), but makes up for it by having a higher wormwood content (the other active ingredient, a mild poison which is claimed to have a hallucinogenic effect). After one, the fact that it was a fiver a shot (the barman probably guessed we weren't the flushest of punters and kindly warned us first) meant that we called a stop to our experiments, but not before we'd witnessed ...  Read the complete review

Well now, naturally someone with a handle like mine is going to have an opinion on La Fée Verte... It's a highly priced drink (too highly priced, in my opinion) and a natural progression if you're a Ricard/Pernod drinker like myself. First thing that hits you is the extreme bitterness - after that, you begin to understand why people add sugar to the stuff. Using the traditional absynthe spoons are a bit of a bind as the sugar takes forever to dissolve - be it lumps or grains. But the ritual's nice. Personally, I like trying different things to mask the bitterness - like amaretto syrup instead of sugar and mixing it with lemonade instead ...  Read the complete review