I have such great friends. I've been wanting to try some of la Fée Verte (The Green Fairy) for quite some time, but never pulled the trigger on ordering a bottle. But my Wednesday night drinking buddy, Michael, recently came back from Paris, and brought us back a bottle of the jade-colored "deadly stimulant" and we transported ourselves back to the Moulin Rouge and the heyday of a bohemian living. We raise a glass of absinthe - oooo. Check the Wikipedia entry on absinthe for a pretty good short history of absinthe, but suffice to say it is illegal in the US to make, buy or transport, but you can own it and drink it, so I wasn't expecting the doors to come crashing in, arresting us on sight!

And Michael didn't skimp either. He brought back a bottle of Absinthe Nouvelle-Orleans by TA Breaux, the New Orleans chemist who reverse-engineered the long-forgotten recipe for the Pernod Absinthe. He was featured in a Wired magazine article and a New Yorker profile. It comes in a gorgeous tall thin bottle, with a very pretty label, sealed with wax and a long cork. He also brought over the required absinthe slotted spoon and even a couple of French sugar cubes - we went authentic all the way!

The absinthe serving process is a little complicated, because you want to dilute the 68% (nearly 140 proof!) liquor down a little before drinking it. So you put the slotted spoon over a glass, set the sugar cube on the spoon and slowly run cold water across the cube and into the green liquid. The liquor slowly begins to "louche", which is when it turns a milky-green. About a 4-1 ratio of water to absinthe is about right, but I think maybe we were a little short of that. It will definitely require lots and lots of practice!-)

After we filled our glasses, we took a sip of the forbidden elixir. And it was surprisingly good, especially for something some have described as "an incredibly nasty drink". Mint, licorice, and other herbs could be tasted. And yes, after a few sips, something weird goes on in the mouth; something tingly, a little numbing, and very much hard to describe. But definitely good, yet something that will require some practice to get right. Colder water, perhaps, with a better ratio. He also brought back another, smaller, bottle, so we'll have to do some taste tests.