Absinthe, Oh Green Goddess

18 Oct 2010 1 Comment

by esscentualalchemy in Natural Perfume Tags: Absinthe, arts, Beverages, business, creative process, Dale Pendell, Food, Green Hour, Liquor, music, Natural Perfume, nature, New Orleans, new perfume, United States, work in progress

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Absinthe Fountain

Now you might be wondering…WHY is she writing about this?  Well I have had a long love affair with this particular elixir.  Studying music like I did, and studying literature in addition, it’s inevitable, seeing as I love the bohemians and impressionists, that I’d get around to finding out about Absinthe.  Many of them were, imbibers.  Many of them were drunks on it as well…and abusers.

However, I wont’ hold that against them.

I have wondered if I could make an Absinthe Perfume for some time now.  So I did my best, using the Dale Pendell recipe.  It smells like Absinthe.  It certainly is GREEN.

Now then I was thinking, perhaps since you’d use all of these things and age them in alcohol, could you even drink this mixture provided you add enough alcohol?  I don’t know.  I wasn’t quite brave enough to try…I’ll have to think about it.

I have provided some various and sundry reading for your perusal and pleasure.  Erowid is the place to go for INFORMATION regarding substances.  If you want propaganda head to the ONDCP…

So enjoy.

http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/absinthe/absinthe.shtml

Green Fairy; Green Goddess; La Fée Verte

Absinthe is a green liquor, made by soaking wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) and other herbs in grain alcohol. Its psychoactive effects may be the result of both the alcohol and the presence of thujone, the primary active ingredient in wormwood. Whether or not thujone is psychoactive in the concentrations found in commercial absinthe (typically less than 10 mg/liter) is a matter of debate. The drink was popular in Europe and America in the 19th century before many countries outlawed it due to concerns about the health effects of thujone. In the late 1980s absinthe began to reappear in many European countries.

Because of the bitter taste of Absinthe, it is traditionally served poured over a perforated spoon full of sugar and then diluted with water. Another traditional method includes dipping the spoonful of sugar in the absinthe then lighting it on fire, the melting sugar drips into the Absinthe, lighting it on fire, only to be put out by adding water.

Elixirs resembling absinthe have existed for thousands of years. Pythagoras and Hippocrates may have both recommended wormwood and wormwood tinctures for a variety of ailments. Legend has it that the modern recipe for Absinthe was developed in 1792 by a French doctor named Pierre Ordinaire. A few years later, it made its way into the hands of Major Dubied and his nephew Henri-Louis Pernod, who developed several distilleries and were the first to produce modern Absinthe on a large scale. Absinthe sale was prohibited in many countries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries amid fears that it was neurotoxic. Beginning in the late twentieth century, several countries began allowing the sale of absinthe-style liquors again, and it is undergoing something of a resurgence of popularity.

Absinthe: The Green Goddess

By Aleister Crowley. A somewhat poetic description of his experiences with absinthe.

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I

Keep always this dim corner for me, that I may sit while the Green Hour glides, a proud pavine of Time. For I am no longer in the city accursed, where Time is horsed on the white gelding Death, his spurs rusted with blood.

There is a corner of the United States which he has overlooked. It lies in New Orleans, between Canal Street and Esplanade Avenue; the Mississippi for its base. Thence it reaches northward to a most curious desert land, where is a cemetery lovely beyond dreams. Its walls low and whitewashed, within which straggles a wilderness of strange and fantastic tombs; and hard by is that great city of brothels which is so cynically mirthful a neighbor. As Felicien Rops wrote, — or was it Edmond d’Haraucourt? — “la Prostitution et la Mort sont frere et soeur — les fils de Dieu!” At least the poet of Le Legende des Sexes was right, and the psycho-analysts after him, in identifying the Mother with the Tomb. This, then, is only the beginning and end of things, this “quartier macabre” beyond the North Rampart with the Mississippi on the other side. It is like the space between, our life which flows, and fertilizes as it flows, muddy and malarious as it may be, to empty itself into the warm bosom of the Gulf Stream, which (in our allegory) we may call the Life of God.

But our business is with the heart of things; we must go beyond the crude phenomena of nature if we are to dwell in the spirit. Art is the soul of life and the Old Absinthe House is heart and soul of the old quarter of New Orleans.

For here was the headquarters of no common man — no less than a real pirate — of Captain Lafitte, who not only robbed his neighbors, but defended them against invasion. Here, too, sat Henry Clay, who lived and died to give his name to a cigar. Outside this house no man remembers much more of him than that; but here, authentic and, as I imagine, indignant, his ghost stalks grimly.

Here, too are marble basins hollowed — and hallowed! — by the drippings of the water which creates by baptism the new spirit of absinthe.

I am only sipping the second glass of that “fascinating, but subtle poison, whose ravages eat men’s heart and brain” that I have ever tasted in my life; and as I am not an American anxious for quick action, I am not surprised and disappointed that I do not drop dead upon the spot. But I can taste souls without the aid of absinthe; and besides, this is magic of absinthe! The spirit of the house has entered into it; it is an elixir, the masterpiece of an old alchemist, no common wine.

And so, as I talk with the patron concerning the vanity of things, I perceive the secret of the heart of God himself; this, that everything, even the vilest thing, is so unutterably lovely that it is worthy of the devotion of a God for all eternity.

What other excuse could He give man for making him? In substance, that is my answer to King Solomon…

Green Goddess

“Absinthe drunk on a winter evening / lights up in green the smokey soul; / and the flowers on the darling one / exude perfume before the green fire.”

– from “Lendemain”, by Charles Cros

La Fee Verte

ABSINTHE RECIPE

(From Dale Pendell‘s Pharmako/Poeia)

30.0 g wormwood
8.5 g hyssop
1.8 g calamis
6.0 g melissa
30.0 g anise seed
25.0 g fennel seed
10.0 g star anise
3.2 g coriander seed

Put the dry herbs in a large jar. Dampen slightly. Add 800 ml of 85-95 percent ethyl-alcohol (use alcohol suitable for drinking). Wine spirits make a better product than pure grain alcohol. Let it steep for several days – a week is better – shaking occasionally. Then add 600 ml of water and let the whole macerate for another day. Decant off the liquid squeezing as much from the mass of herb as possible. Wet the herbs with some vodka and squeeze again. Recipe should give a little over a liter and a half of green liquor. It must then be distilled. Inferior recipes skip this step, but what they produce is not worthy to be called absinthe.

In the distillation, change the receiver when the distillate turns yellow: those ar the faints. You can save the faints and add them to future distillations, but they will taint the flavor if added directly to the product. Just use the good stuff. The next step is to color and finish the liqueur by another round of maceration.

Color the distillate by again adding:

4.2 g mint
1.1 g melissa
3.0 g wormwood
1.0 g citron peel
4.2 g liquorice root

Let the herbs macerate for another three or four days. Decant, filter, bottle. You will probably want to carefully add some concentrated sugar syrup to the blend. The result will be a Swiss style absinthe of about 135 proof.Recipe makes one liter of absinthe.

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