So I finally opened the bottle

Yesterday was my birthday and I figured I should open the bottle of Absinthe I got for myself back around christmas. I wasn't scared of it or anything but I wanted to save it for a special occasion. I mean this stuff ended up costing me over a $100 so I didn't want to waste it on just any old weekend.
I'd read all the crazy stories of people after they drink this stuff too so I waited until i had a slow week of class.
First thing's first I had to prepare a glass and leave it to the French and their love of rituals to invent a drink that takes 10 minutes to prepare. Don't know how to prepare it? Well here's a breakdown of the procedure to Green Fairy land.

How to Prepare Absinthe

To do it right, you will need a few things in addition to the bottle itself: some ice cold water (warm water makes it taste like donkey piss), sugar cubes, an absinthe glass(a wine glass will work too but makes it harder to measure ratios), and an absinthe spoon.

1. Fill your glass with absinthe up to the marked fill line.
2. Lay the spoon flat across the mouth of the glass.
3. Position a sugar cube over the slots in the spoon(you can use a fork too but the spoon's classier).
4. Slowly trickle water over the sugar cube(I'm talking drop by drop) and into the glass.I found that using a slightly frozen water bottle makes it really easy for slow drips if your not super fancy and don't have an absinthe dripper full of shaved ice on hand. With the introduction of water, the mixture will turn milky (or louche as they say) as the various oils and aromatics precipitate out of the solution. (See? Chemistry was useful for something)
5. After your sugar cube has finished doing its impression of an eroding urinal cake, continue adding water until you reach your preferred strength. The most popular ratio of absinthe to water is somewhere around 1:4. I personally think you get the perfect pour just when the dark line at the top of the louche dissapears.When you're ready, remove the spoon and take a sip.

Ok now my first impression of the drink is a little mixed. The bottle I had(a Jade Edouard 72) had a earthy licorice taste to it and I'm just not huge on licorice tasting drinks. I will say however that I can see why people claim they hallucinate on this stuff. For one it's about 72% alcohol but weirdly enough it's a very deceptivly smooth drink. There were several times where I was growing tired of sipping it and was going to just gulp the rest of it down but then I'd grow a little tipsy and hold off on it. I started to feel tipsy, I shit you not, literally after about three sips of this stuff. What I liked about it however was I got that euphoric drunk feeling without the corddnation loss,numbness,etc. It was a pretty cool buzz to tell you the truth. I think I could drink a glass of this stuff and be good for a night even. No hnagovers this morning either so all and all I got to recommend the stuff unless you feel like binging then you'll just get knocked flat on your ass and probably regret it.

BTW, in case your wondering why I haven't mentioned setting it on fire anywhere in this article it's because it was invented as a marketing gimmick in the 90's when many Absinthe laws in Europe were replealed. But really think about it, do you really want your drink to taste like burnt sugar? Do you want to set yourself on fire? Absinthe burns almost as well as gasoline(again my bottle was 72% ABV). The burning sugar "ritual" is, to borrow the words of absinthe historian Benoit Noel, a "savage syncretism", born in the 1990s in the Czech Republic, born of the same ignorance that led the "absinth" producers there to produce the awful swill that goes under the name. The intention was probably to piggyback on the late 1980’s success of flaming sambuca and the like. In summary, the original Czech producers knew as little about serving absinthe as making absinthe, so they made up their "tradition" as they went along.

There are many Absinthe's out there now too. You can find Blanchettes,a clear absinthe, from Switzerland.There's a supposedly excellant Montmartre with cinammon taste to it. There is some great stuff out there and some awful swill out there too. It's best to stick from one's manufactured in France and Switzerland but Spain and Austraia have some notables too.

Want to order your own? Here's a good place to start.

If your looking to find out more about absinthe this site is a wonderful resource.

The Most Powerful Energy Drink?

Source

My God.

So there's this new energy drink that came out. It’s called VPX Redline Fat Burner. Amazon is lacking on info, so here’s a little more.
Check out this freaky scientific VPX breakthrough:

RED LINE®: is the only matrix ever developed to shred fat through the shivering response in the body. By shivering the body burns huge amounts of stored bodyfat for energy in an effort to keep the body warm. That’s not all! In addition to shivering, you’ll also be sweating up a thermogenic storm. The combined mechanisms of these two processes results in unparalleled fat loss!

What fun. Now, it’s pretty obvious looking at the ingredients that there’s caffeine. But get this: all of the aforementioned goodness, and the serving size is FOUR ml. About one TENTH of an ounce. The whole bottle has 240 ml, or 60 servings. Basically, a bottle of this, less than the size of a normal can of coke, WILL kill you. This is nothing to be playing around with.

So what’s in this magical bottle of awesomeness/liquid crack? Caffeine, Green Tea, Yerba Mate, 5-HTP (5 hydroxy-1-tryptophan), cAMP, Yohimbe, Evodiamine, and Vinpocetine. And a few other things.

I know, I know, so here’s some more info:

cAMP is cyclic adenosine monophosphate. It supposedly “sparks many intercellular processes.” Whatever that means. Increased concentrations supposedly raise thyroid horomone levels, and help fat burning (would help explain why it’s in a fat-burning supplement).

Yohimbe is a bark extract from a tree in Africa. It’s considered a natural aphrodisiac, and sold here to treat imotency, dialate pupils, and stimulate fat loss. It can also mess with your blood pressure, so watch out.

Evodiamine is derived from some Chinese fruit called Evodia Rutaecarpa. Supposedly burns fat.

Vinpocetine is an alkaloid derived from some periwinkle plant. It is used in Europe, Japan, and Mexico to treat crebrovascular and cognitive disorders. Some people claims it elevates metabolism, but with no proof.

And the interesting one in the group:

5-HTP. I made sure to spell it out, so the smart ones in the group have already figured out the key: Tryptophan. It’s the same stuff in turkey that makes you sleepy, and there’s scientific evidence of it. The 5-HTP compound is sometimes used to treat mild depression since, somehow, it can increase serotonin levels. It can also affect appetite, which may be part of why they put it in here. The other part? When you’re jacking up a drink with this much caffeine, you’re going to get jitters and “scatterbrain.” This may actually cut the disconnected thoughts out and allow you to think normally, but still give you the energy effects of caffeine. Awesome.

Apparently you can buy this stuff at places like Super Supplements, GNC, and even some 7-11s. The concentrate isn’t something you should take a guzzle of. Or even a large sip. If you search on the internet, you can see some people who took the recommended dose, and started blacking out towards the end of a workout. Blacking out. 4 mililiters. Damn. There’s also a ready-to-drink version (I would bet that’s the one at 7-11), and half a bottle is all that’s recommended. Pay attention to it. People are comparing the 1/2 bottle to a full hit of ephedra. Unless you’ve done that before and know the effect it has on your body, don’t go doing anything macho with this one. Go do that with redbull.

Update:
Hey, I found how much caffeine is in this 4 ml shot… click on “The Vitamin Shoppe” and it says in the statistics of it that there is 910mg of caffeine per shot, that’s NINE HUNDRED TEN.
This thing is going to be on the national news programs soon methinks.