Absinthe: The American Remix

Hmmm, still have yet to experience a transcendent experience drinking absinthe, perhaps all that I've sampled has been 'dodgy'.

The Goods: Absinthe: The American Remix :
Americans seeking out the opaque green liqueur beloved by Oscar Wilde and his creative contemporaries now have a less dodgy option.
In praise of the opaque green liqueur beloved by his creative contemporaries, Oscar Wilde once posed the rhetorical question, “What difference is there between a glass of absinthe and a sunset?”

The prosaic answer, at least for Americans, has long been one of legality: sunsets can be freely enjoyed, but absinthe was forbidden because it contained thujone, a potentially toxic compound.

Intrepid drinkers have worked around the ban by ordering imported bottles off the Internet or smuggling them back from Eastern Europe. Now they have a third, less dodgy option: Lucid, which is being marketed as the first legal, genuine American absinthe in nearly a century.

Lucid is the debut product from Viridian Spirits of Manhasset, N.Y., founded in early 2006. According to Jared Gurfein, Viridian’s president, the company’s first order of business was to contact Ted Breaux, a chemist known for his detailed analyses of vintage absinthes.

A New Orleans native, Mr. Breaux now produces absinthes in Saumur, France, using the same recipes and ingredients — including the plant Artemisia absinthium, or grand wormwood — employed by his 19th-century predecessors.

...

While Lucid was awaiting regulatory approval in the United States, Mr. Breaux kept busy perfecting the production process. He uses antique copper stills, which were not built for speed. Scaling up production by a factor of 100 over the prototyping phase, Mr. Breaux said, was a challenge, especially when it came to keeping the herbal flavor consistent from bottle to bottle.

Lucid will be available starting next month, priced at $59.95 for a 750-milliliter bottle. A Web site, DrinkLucid.com, will soon post information on liquor stores that will carry the product.

I sampled the 124-proof liqueur last week, while watching the National Basketball Association playoffs. When diluted with water and a pinch of sugar, the absinthe’s taste is strong and pleasant. And the buzz has an odd way of focusing the mind — I’ve rarely been so entranced by the swish of a basketball net.

still seems a little steep for a drink, but you are welcome to buy me a bottle for May Day.

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