Weird on Moon Juice: A Guide to the Current State of Absinthe

 
Miles Macquarrie of Kimball House (Decatur, GA); verte and blanche absinthe

A couple of weeks ago, leaning at a far corner of the grand bar that forms one half of spanking new Atlanta restaurant Kimball House, resident cocktail mind Miles Macquarrie and I got talking about absinthe, its history, the associated lore, and what on earth to do with it. 

The spirit carries a lot of baggage from its former heyday, and there seems to be a range of attitudes among those who take an interest in it, from the giggling dabblers to the solemn aficionados, then all the way down to whatever sketchy entities are peddling supposedly drug-like substances that are the distinct hue of Ectocooler from the dim shade of the Internet.  We are now just a few years outside the lifting of the nearly worldwide ban on absinthe, a ban that had, for almost a century, placed the drink into that attractive category of the storied forbidden, and we are drinking it once again.  No one has gone crazy as a result (although a sector of absinthe’s consumers probably would like to, at least a little bit), nor has anyone seen strange things orbiting their head.  In fact, absinthe’s most serious proponents would love to strip it of that old reputation entirely.  

Miles seems to have his own particular take regarding its effects.  He described a bachelor party in the mountains that he once attended.  He had packed a particularly good bottle of the stuff.  “At one point in the night,” he said, laughing, “I told myself, I’m gonna go on an absinthe journey, and then I just, like, went out and walked in the woods.” 

Miles’ Kimball House is the latest addition to a small cadre of American bars and restaurants that have taken up the absinthe mantle since, in 2007, absinthe became legal again in the US.  Kimball House has an expansive bar whose scope is worthy of fin de siècle Paris, but its room has the timbre of an old town hall.  Miles has put together an entire menu of absinthes.  It is about twelve selections long, and the examples hail from both Europe and the United States.  I saw in it a ripe opportunity to learn about the stuff, and move beyond being just another dabbler looking to dip a toe into the extreme.

Miles demonstrated the steps of traditional service.  He placed a tall glass with a bulb at its bottom in front of me and poured a verte style from Switzerland, filling the bulb.  He then set an ornate perforated spoon across the rim of the glass, and topped the spoon with a sugar cube.  He pushed that whole assembly underneath one of the two tall ice water fountains (absinthe is paraphernalia-intense) that punctuate the bar at Kimball House, unscrewed one of the petcocks surrounding the base of the contraption, and dribbled water onto the cube.  It began to drop into what was waiting in the bulb.

Slow plumes developed and curled downward into the liquid.  This is an important moment for the absinthe, an activity called the louche, where dissolved botanical oils contact the water and emerge back out of solution, forming wispy apparitions that eventually cloud the drink.  Observing the louche is one of absinthe’s extracurricular pleasures, and the character of that performance can be an indicator of quality.

Absinthe can likely be traced to the village of Couvet, in the Swiss countryside, late in the 1700s, where it was probably first distilled by a French doctor named Pierre Ordinaire, who sold it as a healing elixir.  Soon the recipe—wherein a high-proof spirit is macerated and distilled with herbs, sweet fennel, green anise, and, most importantly, grand wormwood—made its way into other hands, most notably Henri-Louis Pernod, and absinthe began to settle onto the tables and bar tops of Paris.  By the latter half of the 19^th Century it had filled a chunk of the void that formed after phylloxera deprived Europe of its wine supply, and the drink became emblematic of the period, with many artists and writers embracing it not only as a source of recreation, but also one of inspiration.  Two styles became common: verte, which used a second maceration of chlorophyll-bestowing botanicals after distillation, and blanche, which did not, and was therefore colorless. 

At some point, however, the romance soured, and by the first few years of the 20th century some dark, licentious imagery had flowered, with Belle Epoque decadence supposedly leading to addiction, madness, and the removal of an infamous ear.  Edgar Degas’ depiction of a slack-faced woman staring out over a glass full of opaque green (the painting was later named L’Absinthe, but not by Degas), was said to be an expression of the toll the drink had taken upon Paris and its community of artists.  A temperance movement—likely spurred on by a wine industry that had returned from the brink only to find its market share had diminished—congealed and gained a good deal of steam.  The drink was banned in 1908 in Switzerland after a factory worker named Jean Lanfray murdered his family and attempted to kill himself while drunk on two ounces of absinthe (along with many other beverages, to be fair).   Other European countries and the US soon followed suit.  France held out until 1914.

The ban period served as host to a rampant amplification of absinthe’s reputation as a dangerous, addictive drug, rather than simply an alcoholic beverage.  Absinthe continued to be produced in pockets of Europe, most notably Spain and Czechoslovakia, where the quality was often questionable, and which led to a secondary service technique of lighting the absinthe-soaked sugar on fire to caramelize and melt it, thus hiding some of the more uneven aspects of an inferior bottling.  The stark, illicit visual helped intensify the mystique.

Mainstream interest in absinthe began to revive in Europe in the 1990s, and by the middle 2000s many European countries began lifting their bans.  France had relaxed its own rule much earlier, allowing the drink to be produced but not labeled as absinthe, at least not for domestic sale.  In 2011, France eliminated this final restriction, and fell in line with the other countries that were now largely following EU guidelines, which mostly focus upon monitoring levels of a chemical called thujone that is found in the leaves of the grand wormwood plant, Artemisia absinthium. 

Thujone tends to be the center of gravity for the absinthe discussion.  The compound is in the chemical family of terpenes, and it is also present in strong amounts in sage and tarragon.  Although there is little evidence to support its actual role in any potential psychoactive properties of absinthe, it usually collects most of the blame, mostly because it is able to cause seizures in very high doses.  Allowable levels are the main aspect of regulation, with the EU permitting up to 35 mg/kg in those beverages that list Artemisia as an ingredient, while the US has limited the range to 10 mg/kg.  

Early on, it was assumed that pre-ban absinthes were fully loaded with thujone, with some estimates pushing as high as 260 mg/kg.  But recent analysis of vintage, pre-ban absinthes showed that levels in those bottles were no more elevated than in absinthes made in the traditional method today (most of which fall within the US limit of 10 mg/kg).[1]  An additional study showed that thujone levels don’t degrade over time in the absinthe solution, so even though the samples of pre-ban absinthe were nearly a century old, the readings were probably true to the period.[2]  For those levels to be dangerous one would have to consume so much absinthe that the alcohol would have already proven far more toxic than the thujone.  Either way, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to assume that a hallucinatory state, the tales of which have provided absinthe with its most tantalizing stream of myths, would be a conceivable effect.

I spoke with chemist Ted Breaux, one of the lead researchers in those studies.  His work was instrumental in getting the TTB to change its attitude on thujone, which effectively legalized absinthe in the US in 2007.   Breaux became the first person since 1912 to import and distribute an absinthe in the US, a brand called Lucid, which he distilled himself in France. 

Breaux seems eager for absinthe to be rid of the swirling specters of hallucinations, altered states, and the thujone question itself.  “The thujone myth has been conclusively debunked by modern science,” he said.  “There is no scientific study that demonstrates thujone to be hallucinogenic or of recreational value, which makes notions to the contrary unfounded.  It’s hardly worthy of being the focal point of a conversation.”  He continued, saying, “Those products that make false claims about thujone in their marketing are almost invariably inferior and undeserving of being sold as absinthe.” 

The latter remark is likely aimed at producers like Absinthe Original (www.originalabsinthe.com).  The site sells a product called Absinthe King Gold, which claims to tip the scales at 100 mg/kg of thujone.  The site also sells a product called Absinthe Original Innocent, which “due to its lower alcohol it is also ideal for women.” 

The claims that the site makes for thujone itself, however, are not necessarily far off base:

While once thought to instigate simular (sic) reactions as marijuana's THC, recent research suggests it modulates the neurotransmitter GABAA, which plays a vital role in cognitive thought. Subsequently, absinthe provides a level of clarity not usually associated with alcoholic drinks.

It is true that at one time it was proposed that thujone’s action in the brain might mimic that of marijuana’s THC (this was quickly disproven).  And it is also true that a 2004 study entitled Absinthe:  Attention Performance and Mood Under the Influence of Thujone showed strong likelihood of an interaction between thujone and alcohol at the GABA type-A receptor, leading to a “stimulating and rousing effect” along with “an increase in fear sensations” (this was at a thujone level of 100 mg/kg, however, well above the common level for absinthe).[3]  And even Ted Breaux is quoted elsewhere as saying that with absinthe he achieves “a sensation of clarity” (hence his product’s name, Lucid) distinct from what he gets with red wine, under the influence of which his “mind just drops down”. [4]

It is difficult to say what might be the cause of that sensory distinction.  Breaux would probably say the culprit isn’t thujone.  I contacted Brian Robinson, an editor and the absinthe reviewer for The Wormwood Society, a website that is the major hub of absinthe-oriented activity online.  He echoed Breaux on the topic of thujone, but added “anise does have certain stimulative properties”.  He also likened the difference in experience to the difference between, say, beer-drunk and whiskey-drunk. 

I can imagine that for the hardcore absinthe enthusiast talking about thujone levels and buzzes must grow tedious over time, and it doesn’t help that interest in these topics emits from absinthe’s more sensational, drug-culture features.  I got the feeling that my own probings on these subjects were merely being tolerated, and that the real issues for Robinson and Breaux lay elsewhere.  And legitimately so.  For the professional taster of absinthe, there is far greater interest in the details of botanical selection, appearance, even, to a degree, terroir.  The village of Couvet in Switzerland is currently seeking an official appellation for its product, and at one time even went so far as to try and fully command the word absinthe—à la Champagne and Cognac. The latter attempt was unsuccessful, but producers there still cite the place’s distinct ability to grow high quality botanicals as a natural advantage.

It would appear that the pros would like the botanicals in absinthe to be its true celebrity, and not thujone.  Brian Robinson told me that for the seasoned absinthe reviewer, the skill depends upon being able to spot the quality of the herbs used, and Ted Breaux described how a good taster is able to sense differences in cultivar and terroir.  Both of them, however, emphasized that an exposure to quality examples of pre-ban absinthe is a must, and that, since the opportunity to do so is rare, very few skilled tasters actually exist. 

Breaux has been fortunate.  He has tasted dozens of examples of vintage absinthes.  “Absinthe differs from most spirits in that it ages in the bottle,” he said.  “The stronger flavors tend to oxidize over the years, resulting in gentler honeyed components that integrate everything.”  And Brian Robinson’s Review Tutorial for The Wormwood Society describes certain appealing “dead leaf” colors, like deep yellow or brown-gold, that appear as flashes in the older examples.[5]

Robinson admitted that absinthe would probably always remain something of a niche product.  But Miles Macquarrie appears to be having some of success at his bar, both with traditional absinthe service and with the spirit as an ingredient in cocktails.  Still, it is a challenge for absinthe to find footing apart from the dark mystique that follows it around.  So much of the associated imagery is eternally bound to it.  Even Ted Breaux’s absinthe, Lucid, sports an eerie black label, adorned with a pair of green peering eyes.  And goth-mannequin Marilyn Manson also now produces an absinthe.  It is called Mansinthe.

Try as the pros might to exorcise what haunts absinthe and bring it into some kind of standard legitimacy, they may risk removing a piece of its heart.  The fact of the matter is that we do feel something different on the stuff.  And accounts from writers and painters during the Belle Epoque suggest that something was going on, not just creative minds getting drunk.  Whether those details stand to impair absinthe as a valid pursuit, or pull it toward the line that divides boozing culture and drug culture, I can’t really say.  Either way, Miles Macquarrie seems to have the right attitude, with his absinthe journey in the woods.  It would appear that absinthe is not ready to be done with its mysteries quite yet.

Five Recommended Bottles

 
Selected bottles; Miles and the author at work