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If it doesnt taste like wormwood can it be called Absinthe?


chaucer

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I recently had the oppurtunity to taste Lucid Absinthe and St. Georges brand as well. Neither of these products had the flavor of wormwood, which disapointed me greatly. The Fennel and Anise were overpowering to say the least. I feel keeping the thujone levels below 10 PPM has diluted the main ingredient out of the picture. If this is the case I feel like I've been misled. It was called absinthe after Wormwoods latin name and if you can only taste Anise and Fennel but no Wormwood, this writer feels that it is a ripoff. The country is riding the wave of all of this post ban "absinthe" but what percentage of people actually know what wormwood tastes like, 2% ? Anyway what inspired this rant was after i tried the lucid and the st george i tried a friends homemade Absinthe and the flavor profile was perfectly balanced between the anise fennel and wormwood. To me this is how it should taste, and anything else is just Anisette with a Absinthe label. Am I the only one who feels this way?

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I feel keeping the thujone levels below 10 PPM has diluted the main ingredient out of the picture. If this is the case I feel like I've been misled.

I don't think anyone is purposely creating their Absinthe recipe to limit wormwood from traditional levels. The less than 10ppm is typical of historic absinthe as well as modern- this was the reason the ban was lifted, turns out thujone doesn't carry over well from the still. In fact I'd be willing to bet the products you mention started as traditional porportions and additional botanicals were added to get a product the distiller enjoyed. Visit http://www.wormwoodsociety.org/ an excellent resource for all things absinthe.

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Grehorst is correct. the 10ppm barrier isn't the issue here. Lucid was intentionally developed for an American palate, as well as to be the vanguard product to get onto the market. I don't know the full details, but I can assume that Ted was being extra careful with the wormwood just to make sure he didn't ruffle any feathers with it. As for St. George, that is a slightly atypical brand, with Lance exercising some of his famous creativity in the ingredients he chose to make it with.

There are some products coming onto the market shortly which will be using more classic recipes.

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I was just commiserating with some of the Wormwood Society a few weeks ago at Tales of The Cocktail in New Orleans over the lack of any classic, benchmark, or whatever other term someone wants to use, Absinthe in the US market to date.

The term Absinthe is tricky to use anywhere, in France you see (roughly translated) with absinthe plants (contains wormwood) for labeling, and the TTB does not have a standard definition/category as such.

There is a wide variety in interpretation (and quality) of absinthe as there were so many preban brands and formulas out there and of course individual expressions of it

There are a lot more brands in the pipeline for the US market made both here and abroad-keep sampling!

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There are some products coming onto the market shortly which will be using more classic recipes.

Mine is one of them. I assure you there's no lack of wormwood flavor in Marteau and it comes in well below the 10ppm. In fact, I could use more than three times the wormwood I do and still be under the limit, but it would taste unbalanced. FWIW, I can taste the wormwood in lucid.

i tried a friends homemade Absinthe and the flavor profile was perfectly balanced between the anise fennel and wormwood. To me this is how it should taste, and anything else is just Anisette with a Absinthe label. Am I the only one who feels this way?

You're right, a proper absinthe should balance the wormwood with the other ingredients. Several of the mass-market items labeled as absinthe in recent years are nothing more than pastis with an incidental inclusion of wormwood.

In reading your past posts, I have to ask this: is your friend's homemade absinthe distilled? The reason I ask is that many people think that the very bitter taste of raw wormwood is the taste sought in absinthe, and that's not the case. If you're looking for that particular bitter taste, it's no wonder you'd be disappointed in a properly made absinthe.

Absinthe was always understood to be an anise spirit that was flavored with wormwood, and it isn't really that bitter. I've tasted a number of absinthes made in the pre-ban era, and have personally made many absinthes strictly according to pre-ban era formulas; the result is invariably an anise flavored spirit with other herbal flavorings.

The classic French absinthe of the type made in Pontarlier, like the original Pernod Fils, used per 100 liters:

25 kg grand wormwood

50 kg aniseed (not star anise)

50 kg fennel seed

It's easy to see that the primary flavor will be from the anethole in the anise and fennel.

On the thujone issue, there's no real trade off, it's just a difference of semantics. The EU requirements for a product labeled "absinthe" are the same as those for the US: below 10ppm. In the US, the rule saws it must be "thujone free," but what they consider thujone free just happens to be 10ppm. The EU will also allow up to 35ppm in a product labeled "bitters." That extra 25ppm is minuscule.

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I will reaffirm what has already been said about there not being a standard. This spirit has not been distilled legally in the US, France or Switzerland for over 95 years so it is safe to say that we are all new at this. That being said I agree with Guy in that it was my own experience in developing my absinthe. I researched what I could find on old recipes and experimented with them and added my own botanicals to bring a flavor which I felt was a flavorful expression. I do have the holy trinity (Grande wormwood, Anise (not star) and fennel) in historical proportions and I suspect others do to. Beyond that it's up to the distiller. The less than 10ppm benchmark is well within those historical recipes I can tell because I was afraid to send my sample to TTB after following one to the letter and it tested below 10ppm and there was a lot of wormwood in there.

I know that Lucid went through great lengths (from what I have read) to adhere to the tradition of Absinthe down to the Alambic pot stills. This category is about to get nasty I think as people try to assert to the consumer that each is the genuine article and as always a lot of misinformation will get perpetrated.

In my opinion it comes down to taste preference so if you want more wormwood taste others that come to market and drink the one you like. In my opinion the only ones I've seen on the market that I would not consider true absinthe are the Absinthe Liquers which have sugar in them.

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hey GStone yes my friends absinthe was distilled but the recipe and proportions i dont know. I do know that it has only anise fennel and wormwood. As for looking for the bitterness, i was just shocked to find the new absinthe had little wormwood flavor. It was my first time tasting it and my expectations were high. thanks again for good solid info.

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I agree with you Nick. There will always be those who just want to target a niche and don't care what with.

In my opinion it comes down to taste preference so if you want more wormwood taste others that come to market and drink the one you like.

Yep. There are historic recipes that are fairly light on wormwood, and those that have lots.

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