New Legal Absinthe

[atkinsa]

Anyone try the new Absente (Refined Absinthe)? Legal in the US by using Southern Wormwood, which has less Thujone. It runs about $40 a bottle here in NC so I wanted to see if anyone has tried it before I go out and get a bottle. Experiences with the original would be desired as well.

[CrispyCritter]

Fee Verte would probably be the best place to start regarding absinthe. By the way, the US has now accepted the EU standard 10 mg/liter or less of thujone, and there's now a true absinthe, Lucid, legally available in the US - and more on the way.

The gist of it is that the US is now considering 10 mg/liter to be effectively thujone-free - and modern analysis of classic pre-ban absinthes has shown that most of them would fall under this limit.

There is a great deal of misinformation and outright BS about absinthe, and Fee Verte has a lot of information...

[nor02lei]

Fee Verte would probably be the best place to start regarding absinthe. By the way, the US has now accepted the EU standard 10 mg/liter or less of thujone, and there's now a true absinthe, Lucid, legally available in the US - and more on the way.

The gist of it is that the US is now considering 10 mg/liter to be effectively thujone-free - and modern analysis of classic pre-ban absinthes has shown that most of them would fall under this limit.

There is a great deal of misinformation and outright BS about absinthe, and Fee Verte has a lot of information...

10mg/ litre is no absinthe more than the name. A real absinthe is +200mg/litre.

Leif

[heatmiser]

I just read about a recent testing of thujone levels is historic absinthe came in way under their originally claimed amounts. Here is a link to the information located on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thujone

[nor02lei]

I just read about a recent testing of thujone levels is historic absinthe came in way under their originally claimed amounts. Here is a link to the information located on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thujone

Very interesting indeed Jeff. A friend and me did drink quit a lot of bootleg absinth that was supposed to have far over 200mg/litre a year or 2 ago. We didn’t feel anything from the thujone. It did have a very strong taste of fresh wormwood though. Maybe its all a myth.

Leif

[OscarV]

From what I understand, Absinthe got it's bad rep from the wine makers in France.
They, the wine makers, did to Absinthe, what the politicians did to marijuana in this country.

[barturtle]

From what I understand, Absinthe got it's bad rep from the wine makers in France.
They, the wine makers, did to Absinthe, what the politicians did to marijuana in this country.

Ah, yes while it was ultimately the the politicians that illegalized it, it was actually Dupont that was responsible...seems they couldn't sell their synthetic hemp(that's how they marketed it anyway), nylon, as cheaply as hemp could be grown....it was also about to be in a position to be used as paper as cheaply as wood pulp with the advent of a new machine to utilize it (Dupont also sold many of the chemicals used in papermaking) and Henry Ford had already made a car built of and running on hemp. The Marijuana Tax Act(1937) had already killed commercial production long before the Boggs Act(1951) made it illegal.

[ILLfarmboy]

Ah, yes while it was ultimately the the politicians that illegalized it, it was actually Dupont that was responsible...seems they couldn't sell their synthetic hemp(that's how they marketed it anyway), nylon, as cheaply as hemp could be grown....it was also about to be in a position to be used as paper as cheaply as wood pulp with the advent of a new machine to utilize...

nylon rope is good for mooring your boat but don't use it as a tag line to lift a 5 gal. bucket of tools or other similarly heavy load up a fair distance like a bucket elevator leg; 100+ feet. Damn nylon is too slick, especially when lowering your tools! Good hemp rope is best. It also shrugs of welding and cutting sparks better. Friggin' nylon melts and burns way too easily!

We can import hemp rope and I'm asuming other products but farmers can't grow it here.

Now to stay on topic. I think I saw this Absente on store shelves at two different Hy-Vee Wine and Spirits in the Quad Cities area. What I saw was packaged in a colorful box. I didn't take one out to look at the bottle but I suspect this is what atkinsa is referring to.

[atkinsa]

Upon further research, the absente using Southern Wormwood, which I first referred to differs mostly in taste (less bitter), lower thujone, and lower alcohol content. If I try any of this I'll probably wait for the more authentic brands to hit the shelves.

[CrispyCritter]

Very interesting indeed Jeff. A friend and me did drink quit a lot of bootleg absinth that was supposed to have far over 200mg/litre a year or 2 ago. We didn’t feel anything from the thujone. It did have a very strong taste of fresh wormwood though. Maybe its all a myth.f

There lies part of the problem. Some of the Czech products actually tout their thujone content as if that were a good thing. This is the sort of fly-by-night thinking that (along with the French vintners already mentioned) helped give absinthe its bad reputation.

A proper absinthe will have lots of other things besides wormwood (especially anise, but a variety of other herbs and spices as well).