f13.net

How in the holy hell was I not made aware of this?!
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/arts/12conn.html?_r=2&ref=dining&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Oh man, when I'm off this diet, I'm going to get POSITIVELY WRECKED on that yummy wormwood mess.

Weak.

To clarify another of schild's screams of exultant joy followed by "meh":


(from Time (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1689232,00.html))

http://www.litabsinthe.com/home.html

Well, the sugar will kill ya.

(http://www.absinthe.se/images/drinkers/rimbaud.jpg) (http://www.absinthe.se/images/drinkers/lautrec.jpg) (http://www.absinthe.se/images/drinkers/wilde.jpg) (http://www.absinthe.se/images/drinkers/vangogh.jpg)

Absinthe junkies were so cool.

(http://www.gameland.ru/post/39026/img/Bioshock-11_s.jpg)

What?

Wait, so they haven't actually lifted the absinthe ban?  They're just making extra-strong Herbsaint/Chartreuse knockoffs and calling it "absinthe"?

If so, I'm sure glad I didn't wait in the line at the distillery on "release day".  (One of the places that's brewing and selling this so-called absinthe is here in Alameda.  We went over at lunchtime and the line was pretty much around the block.)  Here I thought our stupid country had taken a small step forward in not banning substances for entirely stupid reasons.

We used to call absinthe Witch's Piss when I was in Germany. I was usually pretty hammered by the time I got to it though. I never saw the green faerie.  :?

(http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff26/stuabrtow/absinthe_greenfairy_oliva.jpg)

I had some of the 'real stuff' about a week ago...  fucking christ, what a horrible drink.  I have no idea how it got to be so trendy in the U.S.

I've had real, fake, and home made absinthe. I think they all taste great.

Also, Americans like licorice.

I nearly died drinking absinthe a few years ago. A friend had some Czech stuff which it turned out had been fortified by the distillers with a generous slug of methanol. I have never been sicker ever. Pro-tip: You do not get quality alcohol in squeezy plastic bottles.

I am the friendliest, bounciest guy on the planet when I'm hopped up on that stuff though, I love it (absinthe, not methanol obviously).

Wait.  You can bounce?!?  (http://www.buzzlife.com/forums/images/smilies/needpics.gif)

See, when I was a kid we just took LSD when we wanted to hallucinate.

Yeah really.  Why fuck around with something iffy and/or nasty when you have a government-proven hallucinogen?

The supposed hallucinogenic properties of the wormwood in absinthe is what gets everyone so excited about it.  The active compound in wormwood (thujone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thujone)) isn't a hallucinogen, though; if it were you'd be seeing shit any time you ate something with sage in it.

The hallucinogenic properties of lysergic acid diethylamide are vastly overstated. Best eating shrooms instead.

I knew a chem major in college who told me the same thing, and that it was more than it made you very suggestible; if you thought you'd have trippy hallucinations, you'd have them, but the drug on its own wouldn't necessarily produce that reaction.

Yeah. Mostly it's just heightened sensory perception at best. More vibrancy in colors, more nuance in sounds, etc.. You could trick yourself into seeing patterns into all kinds of objects, I guess, and if you obsess and focus too much on it, you'll probably wig out -- but I wouldn't call that hallucinating per se. I shouldn't even lend any credence to shrooms either -- it's basically the same thing (more delusional than hallucinogenic), but somehow more potent at weakening you and making you lose your grip.

The only time I've truly hallucinated, where every inch of the world literally changed before my very eyes, was the last dose from a (and I hate to admit this) "freon" huffing binge.

Wrong, culinary sage is in the mint family, wormwood and white sage/big sagebrush are in the aster family.

Edit: Oh, also, Salvia divinorum (diviner's sage) is in the same genus as regular old cooking sage and has some narcotic properties.

HA!  VDL pwnd you with botany! 

If your referring to referring to "Dr. Lambs homeade Absinthe" I'm going to claim lies on this one.

We're both talking about the same plant, Salvia officinalis; according to my interweb sources (http://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/s/sages-05.html#comche) it contains the very same thujone that's in Artemisia absinthium.  There are also a couple of "sagebrushes" in the Artemisia genus, but those fall under the same legal restrictions as wormwood (by virtue of being closely related) so they aren't examples of legal thujone sources.


(edit) More links: link (http://www.cababstractsplus.org/google/abstract.asp?AcNo=20053072961) link (http://www.doiserbia.nbs.bg.ac.yu/(A(MAaTrcoDyAE AAMzE5YTQxNjgtOTI4Ny00NTJiLWIzODQtMzc5NTQ4OWRhNDg25x0octc-TWNmB5h0yuJPUeYeaaY1))/img/doi/0352-5139/2003/0352-51390301017V.pdf) link (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4091/is_200609/ai_n17197155)

Huh, learn something new every day.

Most members of the Lamiaceae contain powerful allelochemicals and other hydrocarbons (to inhibit herbivory and interspecies competition), but people rarely graze on an entire shrub and don't experience any of the toxicity.

I assume the thujones in absinthe are more available for uptake (and intoxication) because of distillation? Or maybe some of the allelochemicals in Salvias interfere with thujone. Both genera contain plenty of phenolic compounds, so it's an interesting difference.

Edit: typos

From what I understood, most of the thujones were distilled out of it, and the ban has simply been FUD.

Supposedly the amount of thujone in absinthe is small enough that you'd die of alcohol poisoning long before the thujone had any significant effect on you.  People get fucked up on absinthe because it's 140 proof, not because it contains magical herbs.

Samwise is correct - even if there were lots of thujone in your absinthe, its no use at all for hallucinations. Mot of the bad press (or good press if you're so inclined) comes from the same sort of twats who call cannabis a gateway drug - fearmongering prohibitionists. Go lick a toad instead.

You don't need absinthe for the high alcohol these days - there are a reasonable number of "overproof" rums and plenty of people produce limited runs of "cask-strength" whiskies. Most are considerably more subtle and refined than most of the available absinthes.

As for not getting quality alcohol from squeezy plastic bottles - how wrong is that? Most of the "absolute alcohol" used in labs comes in just such containers. It may not be ideal for drinking undiluted, but its quality stuff. :)

I think of absinthe as being just a tonic like aqvavit - drink for herbalness (like someone else mentioned), not for crazy effects. We got a bottle as a wedding gift and it came with the little slotted sliver spoon for burning a sugarcube into it.

I had some when I was overseas. I thought it tasted terrible, and it didn't alter my sense of perception or anything like that. The other kids were acting a bit odd though.


Then again, I hate most alcohols anyway, and I'm also not very susceptible to drugs/alcohol.



Well, except for the one time I had morphine when I passed a stone. That shit was Great. :grin:

Oh god, the awful memories!

Yea, Ookii likes to believe that that shit didn't exist.

Shit, man, don't go wasting good rum or whisky if you're just looking for something strong to get fucked up on. Everclear is the Answer.

Or better yet, grow the fuck up.

Was that aimed at me? If so, fuck that and fuck you.

He was saying people who drink to "get fucked up" need to grow the fuck up.

I had Absinthe once, the best thing were the sugar cubes.

Yes. Not aimed at you, Righ. And it was probably overly harsh because when I was a kid we used to get as plastered as you could get.

Oh, okay then. But I'd still rather not grow up, even though the higher alcohol booze is best for tasting not chugging. :)

Well, grow up is subjective. I do have a spongebob fleece blanket.

I finally convinced my football/drinking buddy that this year we are going to drink like big boys. Tumblers and ice instead of shotglasses. We've been drinking good stuff for a few years now, and it's criminal to slam it imo. Just something wrong about doing a shot of XO brandy!

I brought a bottle of nice scotch (like $70 a bottle) to a party once and poured a finger for a friend who'd had limited exposure to the good stuff.  (He's something like 10 years older than me.)  Before I could stop him he'd slammed it down like a shot of cheap tequila.

I wept.

Then I poured another and made him do it right.   :grin:

I've a cask strength scotch that I enjoy, so when we had friends over I was happy to offer them a drink.  One accepted, and apparently not being accustomed to drinking hard liquor of any sort let alone good scotch, also threw it back.  The reaction was predictable.  "... you don't know what cask strength means, do you?"

I don't understand....if it's so strong, wouldn't you HAVE to drink it as a shot, since it would be tough to drink anyway due to the undiluted strength of the drink?

Well you're halfway there, now just lose the ice. :grin:

Margalis beat me to it. Don't put ice in good liquor.  Kills the taste and actually makes it taste more like rubbing alcohol. If you have good scotch, you should pour it into a good heavy-bottomed glass at room temperature and then "break" it by putting a small splash of water into it. That splash opens up the oils and gets the aromatics really going.

As to the question above of whether you have to do it as a "shot" good liquor should always be sipped. If you can't handle having that nice burn as it trickles down your throat, stick to wine coolers.

Which brings to mind one of my all time favorite Higgins quotes. Magnum is offering him a scotch and asks if he want ice in it. His response: "God no, I'm not a bloody American!"

Also if it's good scotch and not Bells or some other form of barley flavoured meths then holding it on the back of your tongue and allowing it to evaporate over your palate is the best way to appreciate it.

Not really.  You pour about a shot's worth (or two) for something cask strength, but most shots you throw back in one go.  You don't do that with good scotch, or any good hard liquor, because the whole point is to taste it.  Drink it slowly.  Also, *good* liquor doesn't have much alcohol burn, even at 120 proof.  Try it side by side with cheap grain alcohol some day if you want to compare it. 

Edit:  I should probably add, yeah, it's going to have more burn than standard 80 proof stuff.  My brother in-law thinks the bottle I have tastes like rock gut, but everyone else I've offered it to (who likes scotch) loves it.  It does take a bit to acclimate to, but I think it's some of the best stuff I've tried in the price range. 

So what is it out of interest? Something sold retail or a special from somewhere like SMWS?

Nothing so fancy - A'bunadh.  I love the stuff, but I'm not to where I feel like dropping over $100 per bottle.  Would be nice though.

I grabbed a bottle of scotch at random, it sounded good. Lafrog. Or something, the scottish apparently don't know how to spell. They even forgot the e in whiskey ;) We didn't have time to indulge in it on Sunday, but it's slated for next weekend. I don't know how good it is, 10yr single malt (like the Bushmills we're currently working through), cost about the same as the other whiskeys and whiskys that weren't on the tippy-top shelf ($45 or so). Smells interesting and apparently I now own a square foot of Islay. A foothold, you could say.

Also bought some mead and of course the bubbly for tonight (Laurent and Perrier).

I believe you have to join the Laphroaig society to get the foot of land thing.  I have a bottle of the stuff as well, but I don't care for it much at all.  It is interesting, and has put everything else in perspective and fun to drink every so often for that sake, but I will not likely go for another bottle once this one is out.  I had something of an idea of what I was getting into with it, with it's "love it or hate it" rep, but had to try it and unfortunately there are no good whiskey bars around here to try it.  I'm avoiding anything Islay at the moment as a result, though that's likely a bit unfair to the rest of them.  I believe Righ said he reaches for it (or the QC at least), so it has some converts.

Laphroaig and Talisker are my two favourite whiskies. I love the peaty malts.

I'm a huge Laphroaig fan, also big into Lagavulin.

A recent discovery I'll pass on:  Glenlivet Cask Strength.  It's the other end of the spectrum ... more heathery and a bit honey-y.  Yes, I make up words.

I got a bottle of The Balvenie for Christmas.  Mmm.

I'm at my in-laws house currently where we are making serious inroads into a bottle of 25 year old Glen Ellen. It's very drinkable indeed.

I'll be drinking Bud Light from a keg momentarily.   :awesome_for_real:

That's a great whisky. As for Islay whiskies, they do tend to have the same general characteristics of Laphroaig - robust peaty flavor and a phenol top-taste from the sea air. However, Laphroaig is very much an extreme case. Bunnahabhain is considerably milder and a very subtle and quite complex taste. Bruichladdich is fairly uncharacteristic of the more famous Islay malts, being a rounded fruity tasting whisky - the less expensive products from the distillery being very light on peat taste indeed. They have an extensive range and are well worth sampling.

I'm eager to sample Kilchoman's first whisky in 3 years time. They're making a more traditional Islay whisky than the above, but their unique location on the island will no doubt result in a very different flavor.

Balvenie is quite good.

Talisker is something I like a lot in the fall/winter only.

Just tried Laphroaig a few days ago.  God.  Don't make that your first drink of scotch.  I think I need a slower, less stinky introduction to single malts.

You mean you don't like the smell of band-aids in your Scotch?

I actually like it, but it is not a beginner Scotch.

Ewww, no, don't try that first.  Or second.  It is a must-try for anyone who gets into scotch, but get into it first.  I'll [again] suggest Glenfiddich for a starter single.  It is terribly overrated, but it also has the quality of being very popular and hence unoffensive.  It's average.  Ordinary.  None of the qualities that people who do like Laphroaig are going to go after, but if it's your first you don't know any better and you're more likely to go "not bad" after trying it.

Another good starter Scotch is Macallan, which is aged in sherry casks.  It's definitely not peaty ... lots of cherry, pineapple, and even cranberry notes in it.  It's still got that delightful Scotch aftertaste (burn?) though.  Macallan was my gateway Scotch ... now I'm strung out on the really expensive stuff.

Balvenie 12 double wood is also a lovely starter scotch. It was what I popped my scotch cherry on.

Oban is a very smooth but flavoursome scotch if you want a gentle introduction.

I dunno about flavor.  I like it, but it's a very mild drink, lacking the character and boldness of most others.  Very smooth though, almost deceptive.  Both of these reasons is also why it was my choice for my flask for New Year's Eve; easy to drink, doesn't have a strong scent that would be missed by not having it in a glass, but still has enough flavor to taste good relative to other stuff I could've put in there. 

Either way, yeah, I could see this as a starter too. 

Unless you're rolling in dough, I suggest the modest Glenlivet for a starter scotch. Its pretty approachable; not too bright, not too pungent, with a nice buttery thing going on that you have to pay a lot for in better scotches to reproduce. The pros on the board will probably scoff about how that's a scotch for the Hoi Poloi, but until you know what you like, save yourself some money and buy Glenlivet.

Oh, and don't get Glenfidditch. That's also a cheaper single malt scotch, but its virtually turpentine. I'll dring Johnnie Walker Red before I touch the fidditch.

You can try Glenlivet, Glenfidditch and Macallan in most moderately up-market bars, even in the USA. Another one that's quite easy to get, popular and worth trying to get the taste is Glenmorangie. I too would recommend Glenlivet to start if you have a limited choice - Macallan is one of the best of the whiskies you can buy in a bar with a limited selection, but its strong taste (sweeter than Laphroaig but still very intense) is not always best for beginners. If you've got a wide selection of more common whiskies available, I'd pick Dalwhinnie as a starter, and follow with the lowland Auchentoshan to get an idea of the differences in subtle flavors without going for anything too robust or complex. Then when you want complex, try Cragganmore.

Dalwhinnie and Auchentoshan are very good calls, Righ. <sigh> I miss them like old friends. Wish I could drink like I used to in college! Damned genes.

Cragganmore is :heart:, and I'm a bit disappointed now that my bottle of it is gone.  Not because I can't get another, but because I'm not sure whether I want to pick another up or try something new. 

Auchentoshan is  :heart:. I picked it up on a whim because my wife's family is from the region. I tried the "unaged" version and it was delicious. Anyone compared the unaged to the 10 year?

The ultimate starter scotch in my mind is Tomintoul (http://www.whiskyshop.com/Shop/Detail.aspx?pid=1986). I've used this to create a number of scotch lovers. It has a rich flavor without being overly sweet or bitey. It also has a little smoke to it, which helps folks move on to the peatier scotches.

I tried Auchentoshan unaged (no casking), 10 year, and 21 year at a recent Scotch tasting.  I have to say, I didn't care for the unaged.  The taste was just off, it reminded me of corn whiskey (which I hate).  I definitely enjoyed the 10 year, though.

But ... oh my god ... the 21 year was amazing.  And it should be, for the price.  My local spirits pusher sells it for $185/bottle  :ye_gods:

I do enjoy a bit of Laphroaig (and can get a bottle of cask strength for about £25  :heart: Tesco) but on the whole I prefer Irish whiskey to Scotch. Bushmills or a bottle of Redbreast are my tipples of choice if I can get them.

Also, I think Absinthe is an exception to the general rule that you should drink good spirits straight. That stuff was made to be diluted about 3/4, 4/5 with water and the whole sugar thing. I've drunk quite a bit of it (hooray never having a historic ban on it) and there's an interesting variety, especially as the historic producing countries in Europe are lifting their bans and production is restarting. There's a massive difference between the French and Bohemian style but there's also Swiss absinthes (closer to French but not quite the same) as well as (generally a bit crappy) Spanish Absenta. However drinking the good stuff is really expensive and the really cheap stuff is generally a bad idea (especially if you're in Prague or somewhere and thus it hasn't been checked for export). Hell a large part of the reason it was banned in the first place was because so much of the stuff being sold in France had Meths or industrial dyes in it to save money.

Also fun trivia, a large factor in Absinthe being banned in the states was that it was acceptable for women to drink, hence it destroyed the moral character of the nation.

I smuggled some 160 proof Spanish Absinthe into the country a couple of days ago.  I think I'll stick it in a cabinet and try and forget about it, I'm not ready to go blind just yet.

I reported you to every agency that has an acronym ending with a vowel!  (nothing personal, just for a larf)

That's too bad... The correct agency to report him to probably would have started with a vowel, and ended with an "F".

Why?  Is he Irish?