The stuff is illegal in many countries across the world (and rightfully so) but not in Switzerland. It originated in Switzerland as a matter of fact. Yeah, cheese, chocolate and .... absinthe. Nice. Anyway, we were not sure exactly how to consume the green stuff. I had had it once before, quite a long time ago, with two equally crazy friends of mine so I called them up to ask them if they remembered how we drank it then. My friend responded with a link to a very informative site on the internet which explained everything we needed to know.
Apparently, there are more than one ways to drink Absinthe as well as more than one sorts of the stuff. We liked the Czech method which called for placing a sugar cube on a special absinthe spoon, dipping the sugar cube in the absinthe and letting it soak up the liquor, then lighting the sugar cube on fire and letting it burn and melt the sugar. As the sugar melts, it drips into the absinthe, since the absinthe spoon has holes in it. The trouble was we didn't have sugar cubes or the special absinthe spoon. So we improvised.
We filled a normal tea spoon with normal grain sugar. We (carefully) dipped the spoon with the sugar into the absinthe and let it soak up the alcohol. We then lit the sugar up and let it melt and drip into the absinthe. And we drank.
It tasted quite awful. At 55% alcohol, it was super strong and the anise taste was overpowering. My friend poured Sprite in her absinthe and attempted to drink it that way. She did but had to hold her nose while doing it. I tried to be the brave one but after a few sips, followed by violent shaking after swallowing, I reached for the Sprite too. It didn't help much. I could only finish about half my drink. I should have followed my friend's method of holding my nose cuz apparently that worked. She had three (Sprite infused) shots.
Did we experience any of the "hallucinogenic" effects the Green Monster promises? Yes and no, i guess. I thought I saw a fruit fly, mind you it wasn't green, so can't call it the "green fairy". My friend said she saw nothing, but her comments on a movie we were watching while drinking the absinthe tell me she saw much more than I did. I remember writing everything she said down because I thought (at the time) that it was the most hilarious thing ever. We read my notes the next morning. Here are a couple of lines. Can you guess which movie we were watching??
"A woman, while in labour, is shooting at this guy who just drop-kicked a tiger! Look at the tiger go! He's riding that bike all the way up the stairs! I wonder if it's a famous tiger, you know, like Benny The Bear? We'll have to watch the credits."
The Green Culprit 
Our version of the Czech method
See the fairy in the spoon??
11 comments:
I have a hard time drinking the stuff. I don't think I can drink enough of it to induce hallucination.
I've tagged you for a meme, BTW, check out my blog. Not sure if this is your first meme.
what's a meme?? lol, i guess now you know if that's my first meme or not!
Hi. I found you via Periapex's meme.
We tried Absinthe recently and had similar results. I couldn't get past the first sip because I hate anise flavor. Everyone else reported a good buzz, but no hallucinations.
We didn't try lighting the sugar/absinthe mixture on fire, though. I'll have to remember that for next time.
hi haley, thanks for checking me out.
as it turns out my fruit fly hallucination was not a hallucination after all. i saw it again two days later (while perfectly sober and absinthe-free lol). i'm not sure if different sorts of absinthe produce different results, maybe we just had a lower grade one, i dunno. we'll have to try that again.
as for the lighting the surar on fire, we almost had a huge accident. a big glob of the burning suger fell in the glass with the absinthe and lit it all on fire. we quickly put it out but you've gotta be extra careful.
good luck with your next absinthe exprerience :)
absinthe. i stay far, far away from this stuff after an experience i'll never forget. you're smart to have had it with a friend and not alone.
oh? that sounds interesting. i'd love to read all about it. maybe you can put it on your blog as one of your stories??
hmmm, i'm not sure how i feel about revisitting that experience, but ok. give me a couple of days.
no problem. i'll keep checking :)
Really enjoyed reading about your wild night on absinthe.
I've never tried the stuff. I remember there was a phase when certain bars in Liverpool were allowed to serve people two shots of it and then had to stop. But obviously that system is never going to be marshalled in a bar and some people overdosed badly.
Did you feel drunk from it? Did you get a hangover?
I would like to try it, although your description of cooking it up made me think of it like a hard rug, ready for injection! ;-)
paul: you made me laugh out loud. thanks for that. yes, you do get drunk, bad, but the funny and great thing is you don't really get a bad hangover.
i think it's quite a sensible idea not to serve this drink in bars (cuz apparently serving it up to a limit does not work). it has a very high alcohol content and if you shoot it, it's very easy to overdose since you don't feel the alcohol until it's too late. combine that with the halucinogenic effect of the drink and you've got a recipe for trouble.
i would only drink it in the safety of my own (or a friend's) home with friends or maybe have one shot in a bar. but i don't know about you, but me and self control don't go very well together :)
It's Bart the bear! I swear i'm not absynth-ing that up! Gt's, gt's!
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