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.