Hello everbody, I am drinking absinthe for the first time this upcoming Saturday! I am curious if anybody has an experience they'd like to share. I plan on being very intoxicated with a close friend :]. I'm wondering if anybody found that extra "oomf" in it that everybody seems to talk about? Cheers to the Green Fairy!
If you're getting it here in the states, you aren't getting what it really is. It's regulated here to be "safe". I've not had the real stuff myself, but I have a close friend that has, needs to be smuggled here from europe or homemade. The legal stuff here is not it. But have a fun time anyhow :sunny:
I'm sure you could google how to make it - it is made from an easily bought plant. It's a strain of artemesia, also called wormwood. There are several "kinds" of artemesia, but I do know what ever kind of artemesia you want to find can be bought in the US....the trick is going to be making it right. And I do agree that here in the US absinthe cannot be purchased legally (and I know that stops anybody from drinking it, right? lol). But anyway, I'm just sayin' it can be made and the plant isn't really that hard to find if you know what to look for - tho' the plant would have to be purchased. The plant itself is not illegal.
To make it right, you need a still. You can buy electric counter top distillers for $250-300 with a one gallon pot. I have one and make absinthe, whiskey and apple brandy.
if it is the real stuff, and not the safe version, be careful as wormwood can kill you... it made me giggle a lot while rolling around on the floor... was also a bit transitional trippy but not quite hallucinogenic... i only had the equivalent of three egg cups full... awesome stuff, just treat it with the respect it deserves...
Thanks for replying guys, I would assume that its not the real stuff then because its coming from a friend in California. I don't have the $$ or time to search for the correct ingredients/make it correctly. Or at least not anytime soon. Well, I shall have fun getting quite drunk nonetheless! Has anyone had the real thing and experienced different effects than plain old alcohol?
aha when i tried absinthe for the first time i was out in the woods of tenneesee, trippy shit, remember seeing shadows moving around that weren't there.
Turns out the stuff is actually coming from abroad! Exactly where it came from I did not inquire, but our source claims it to have come from outside the U.S. Hopes are higher now for the real stuff!!
Trippy :biggrin:. I am hoping for some sort of tame trippiness like that since that's what it seems to do. It's going down on Saturday night, I will post about the experience.
So, played around with the Green Fairy last night. Had 4 glasses of Strong68 Absinthe over about 3 hours with the whole sugar cube deal. A good friend and I hung out at her apartment with the intention of playing video games and relaxing. Turns out we felt VERY energetic!! I loved this absinthe! I definitely felt the alcoholic effects like a lack of inhibition and intense silliness during our conversations and actions, but with a clarity so unlike alcohol. We kept saying how "coked out" we felt, and ended up making a real mess of her place LOL. I felt drunk without slurred speech or spinning vision, coupled with copious amounts of energy! I couldn't get over the urge to dance regardless of what music was playing. I rocked out to some ridiculous steampunk band even though I did not enjoy the music...hm. Plus I loved the licorice taste! No trouble getting it down whatsoever. I would say absinthe is great for nights just like this one :]. I can't wait to drink it again!
So you got to try it, and the real deal, wormwood and all. Sounds like it was a fun time. Interestingly, I was in Oz for a week and found myself in a Czech pub that had the real deal. It was about noon and I sort of chickened out, I didn't want to wind up all jacked up at the time and place. Nice to hear you had a great time.
The ban on "real" absinthe in the US was lifted in 2007. They have since been able to use wormwood, but do limit the amount of thujone. Absinthe has traditionally been made with low levels of thujone anyway, and experts say that it may or may not add to the phsycoactive properties of the drink. There are genuine absinthe brands imported into America, most notably Lucid, imported from France. Which was the first real absinthe to be sold in the US, in 2007, since the ban in 1912. Switzerland, the country of origin, is the only country that has a legal definition of absinthe. I think this adds to the misconception that any absinthe sold in the US isn't real, because legally speaking the only true absinthe is bought and sold in Switzerland, even if in other countries it's made with the same ingredients and under the same conditions.
To clarify, you can legally label anything you want as "absinthe" except for in Switzerland. In every other country it differs from distiller to distiller what constitutes as "real" absinthe. Read the label on any absinthe you buy. And do not go overboard on absinthe sold in America because you think it's not the real deal. Some are and some aren't.
