11-01-2005, 03:34 PM
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#17 (permalink)
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Addict
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Wanted to bring this back up because of a decent article in Wired:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.11/absinthe.html
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So Breaux decided to make some himself. He found a French-language history book with "pre-ban protocols," a vague description of how absinthe was made back before it was outlawed. Armed with the protocols, he prepared a batch in the lab. The result? "Not very good," he concedes. "I couldn't imagine that being the most popular liqueur in France."
He got his chance to taste the real thing in 1996, when a friend spotted a bottle marked "old French liquor" at an estate sale. They were asking $300, and Breaux, seeing it was a vintage Spanish Pernod Tarragona absinthe, immediately wrote a check. When he got it to his lab, he plunged a syringe through the cork, extracted one precious sip, and downed it. "It had a honeyed texture, distinct herbal and floral notes, and a gentle roundness uncharacteristic of such a strong liquor," he says. "Those protocols were crap."
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Nouvelle-Orléans is just one absinthe formulation Breaux has mastered. He also makes re-creations of pre-ban bottles. He shows me one that he just distilled, based on an Edouard Pernod absinthe, and I'm dying to taste it. Breaux begins to prepare it in the traditional French manner, a process as intricate as a tea ceremony. First he decants a couple of ounces into two widemouthed glasses specially made for the drink. A strong licorice aroma wafts across the table. Then he adds 5 or 6 ounces of ice-cold water, letting it trickle through a silver dripper into the glass. "Pour it slowly," he says. "That's the secret to making it taste good. If the water's too warm, it will taste like donkey piss."
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Breaux's conclusions were vindicated in early 2005, when a food-safety group working for the German government tested pre-ban absinthe. Dirk Lachenmeier, who ran the study (called "Thujone - Cause of Absinthism?") concluded that absinthe is not any more harmful than other spirit drinks. But the biggest vindication came at the Absinth des Jahres contest in 2004, for which expert judges sampled newly distilled absinthes from all over the world. A little-known candidate, Nouvelle-Orléans, garnered perfect scores and won a gold medal. "Without doubt, the release of Nouvelle-Orléans was a milestone in the history of modern absinthe," says Arthur Frayn, one of the judges. The distiller? Ted Breaux.
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I'd also venture that what you have is ban-friendly 'absinthe'. ie: it isn't really absinthe due to restrictions on it in the US, just labelled that way to separate you from your money. |
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