Adventures in Absinthe: I Got My Butt Kicked by a Fairy

I make no secret of the fact that I enjoy the occasional cocktail. And by occasional, I mean daily. And by daily, I mean several times daily. Pour, swallow, repeat. With that in mind, it is safe to say that not much about liquor surprises me anymore. Gone are the days that I'd approach a bottle of tequila with a certain amount of respect and trepidation, mindful of my allergic reaction to substantial quantities (I break out in handcuffs). At my advanced age, I've learned to hold my liquor.

Those sound like famous last words to anyone else?

I was sitting in the Café Montmarte a few months ago, eating French onion soup and sipping a glass of hot wine, doing all I could to ward off the February chill. I happened to glance up at the chalkboard where the specials were neatly written and saw the words that first sent a shiver down my spine and then brought a smile to my lips: l'heure verte 5-7. The Green Hour. Evidently, the Green Fairy was alive and well in the 21st century, and living in Paris.

I have a habit of taking the long way around to get back to the place where I logically should have started, and my experiences with Absinthe are no different. With its rich history of the Old Absinthe House, its steadfast defiance of Prohibition, and its laissez-les-bon-temps-roulez attitude toward most everything, I should have begun my study of Absinthe in New Orleans. Instead, I ended up there.

I first chased the Fairy in a seedy, back-alley bar in Okinawa, Japan. I stepped in for a bottle of Kirin, but the mamason had other ideas for me. She told me she had something special, something illegal in the States and barely legal there. She pulled out a bottle of clear liquor called D'Absinthe Of Poppy. She mixed me a cocktail, and it looked like it had flakes of something floating in it, like Goldschlager, only silver. I glanced at her and raised my eyebrows in question, and with a gleam in her eyes she spoke only one word, "Opium." Okay, I'll bite.

So I retired to a booth and took a swallow. Having never been a fan of black licorice, the taste was almost more than I could take. I didn't believe her about the opium, but there was definitely something different about this cocktail she called Purple Haze. By the time I finished it, I wasn't so much drunk as I was anesthetized. I wanted to go to the bar and get a beer, I just couldn't. Even stranger, that didn't bother me. So I sat there relaxed, feeling no pain I assure you, and when I next glanced at my watch three hours had passed. Shocked, I looked at the mamason and she gave me a knowing smile. I don't know if I actually passed out in that booth for three hours or if I just stared off into space, but that was enough for me.

Absinthe was enormously popular in New Orleans in the late 1800's. It was considered a different class of liquor, and the ritualistic nature of its preparation set it apart from other cocktails. It is called the Green Fairy because it's green (obviously), and when mixed with water, it takes an opalescent green hue. It was made illegal in this country because of its purported mind-altering properties, derived mostly from the thujone content, a byproduct of wormwood. As some of you may know, wormwood is deadly poisonous.

Fast-forward a few years to the advent of the Internet, and you see the rebirth of Absinthe. At the time the U.S. banned it, it was also banned through much of Europe. However, some Eastern Bloc countries that were inaccessible before the Net were accomplished producers. As it does in so many other cases, the Internet provided a means to circumvent ridiculous government regulations. I recently ordered a bottle from the Czech Republic. When it arrived, I waited for the wife to go to bed and I took it to a neighbor's house and we went to work.

The first round we poured traditionally: a shot of absinthe in a tall glass with a sugar cube slowly dissolved into it with ice cold water. It was awful. I mean really bad. Barely drinkable. We somehow found a way. Then my neighbor got a bright idea. "Why don't we shoot it?" Looking back, I should have seen this suggestion for what it was: another bad drinking decision in a lifetime punctuated by bad drinking decisions. However, at the time it seemed like a reasonable proposition.

After two or three shots that nearly gagged me, I was losing my faith in glasnost. Not only had the Czech's sold me something particularly vile for $65 a bottle, I didn't feel a thing. So I walked back to my house to go to bed and encountered something every homeowner has nightmares about. I opened my front door and the house was filled with smoke! Keeping my panic in check (mostly), I ran up the stairs yelling for my wife to wake up, the house was on fire. The bedroom was full of smoke, and she must have still been groggy because she was giving me the strangest look and wasn't moving. That was when I realized there was no smoke. With a curt, "You're an idiot", she rolled over and went back to sleep. I went downstairs, put the bottle in the liquor cabinet, and there it remains to this day.

Every time I open the cabinet, though, I can hear the Fairy's squeaky little voice calling me to come play, and I grab the rum and shut the door quickly before he gets out. For a little guy, he's got a serious mean streak!