Yes, you too can own an important piece of absinthe history! Cough up a measely £30 million (only about US$40,000,000) and you can own one of Pablo Picasso's most valuable works, "The Absinthe Drinker". And after a few bottles of absinthe, you'll probably look like the gent in the painting as well.

An interesting quiz can be found in this week's Motley Fool column.  Any absinthe fan should be able to make a pretty good guess at the answer:

I may be No. 2 in wine and spirits in North America, but I'm No. 1 in Europe, Asia and South America. I was formed when two French firms merged in 1975. My brands include Ballantine's, Chivas Regal, Kahlúa, Beefeater, Stolichnaya, Jameson, Martell, Glenlivet and Perrier-Jouët. I bought Seagram in 2001 and Allied Domecq in 2005 (selling off Allied's Dunkin' Donuts business). I sell 78 million cases of spirits and 23 million cases of wine each year, raking in more than 3.5 billion euros. I no longer make absinthe, but my famous Pastis, an anise-flavored liqueur, goes by my name.
Who am I?

Some recent snippets of absinthe in the news, on the web and in the blogs:

• There's a blog meme going around, especially in the MySpace.com community, called a "Drinking Survey", and question number 22 is "Ever drank absinthe?". It is still, it seems, a "forbidden fruit", probably because it is still illegal here in the United States.
• Nice list of absinthe cocktails and a podcast concentrating on absinthe can be found at Behind the Bar, including the classic absinthe cocktail:

  Sazerac

  • 1/2 tsp Absinthe
  • 2oz whiskey or bourbon
  • dash Peychaud's bitters

  One method is to just add all these to a cocktail shaker filled with cracked ice, shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Or you can just swish the absinthe around in the glass, pour it out, and add the bourbon & bitters. Garnish with a lemon twist.

  I will say that he's wrong in calling it a "liqueur". Absinthe is a liquor, because it doesn't have added sugars to sweeten it. Admittedly, you often do this at home with it:-)

• Interesting tale from the Modern Drunkard magazine on downing an entire bottle of 100mg thujone (10 times the legal limit) Czech absinthe: Drinking with Van Gogh.
• Nice, quickie reviews of six different absinthes can be found on ether-mask's blog.