I've said many times in past posts, by way of introducing my topics, that most of my current interests were formed when I was a kid (and young man) and reading was the medium of entertainment that introduced me to adventures of all sorts. Since that is so, I thought that I'd start today's post by giving you two excepts from classic literature that I read and that made mention of today's topic. They are both from works by Ernest Hemingway.
From: The Sun Also Rises
Bill was tired after the bull-fight. So was I. We both took a bull-fight very hard. We sat and ate the eggs and I watched Belmonte and the people at his table. The men with him were tough-looking and businesslike.
"Come on over to the café," Bill said. "I want an absinthe."
It was the last day of the fiesta. Outside it was beginning to be cloudy again. The square was full of people and the fireworks experts were making up their set pieces for the night and covering them over with beech branches. Boys were watching. We passed stands of rockets with long bamboo stems. Outside the café there was a great crowd. The music and the dancing were going on. The giants and the dwarfs were passing.
"Where's Edna?" I asked Bill.
"I don't know."
We watched the beginning of the evening of the last night of the fiesta. The absinthe made everything seem better. I drank it without sugar in the dripping glass, and it was pleasantly bitter.
from: For Whom the Bell Tolls
“Let me taste it,” the gypsy said. Robert Jordan pushed the cup toward him. It was a milky yellow now with the water and he hoped the gypsy would not take more than a swallow. There was very little of it left and one cup of it took the place of the evening papers, of all the old evenings in cafés, of all chestnut trees that would be in bloom now in this month, of the great slow horses of the outer boulevards, of book shops, of kiosques, and of galleries, of the Parc Montsouris, of the Stade Buffalo, and of the Butte Chaumont, of the Guaranty Trust Company and the Ile de la Cite, of Foyot’s old hotel, and of being able to read and relax in the evening; of all the things he had enjoyed and forgotten and that came back to him when he tasted that opaque, bitter, tongue-numbing, brain-warming, stomach-warming, idea-changing liquid alchemy. The gypsy made a face and handed the cup back. “It smells of anis but it is bitter as gall,” he said. “It is better to be sick than have that medicine.” “That’s the wormwood,” Robert Jordan told him. “In this, the real absinthe, there is wormwood. It’s supposed to rot your brain out but I don’t believe it. It only changes the ideas. You should pour water into it very slowly, a few drops at a time. But I poured it into the water.” “What are you saying?” Pablo said angrily, feeling the mockery. “Explaining the medicine,” Robert Jordan told him and grinned. “I bought it in Madrid. It was the last bottle and it’s lasted me three weeks.” He took a big swallow of it and felt it coasting over his tongue in delicate anxsthesia. He looked at Pablo and grinned again.
Can you understand how I could have come to wonder what absinthe tastes like? Added to it's allure as a drink because it is drunk by such interesting people, (and I mean Hemingway himself in that description) it also has something called wormwood in it. Wormwood! What a wonderful name. . .
Visions of a worm in a tequlla bottle come to mind of course, but then my thoughts take off even further. Wood-eating worms, the larvae of beetles, or giant annelids in our soils. How about giants like the sandworms from Dune, or Smaug, who, in The Hobbit, is described as "a most specially greedy, strong and wicked wyrm".
And the 'wood' portion of the name conjures up all sorts of places. Sherwood Forest, the Hundred-Acre Wood, and Mirkwood come first to mind. Wormwood is just one of those words that fire my imagination. Little wonder then, that absinthe has been on my list of things to try for some time.
The trouble is, Absinthe was banned in the U.S. and in many other countries as well around 1912. It was that pesky wormwood that was at fault. It was claimed to cause hallucinations and psychotic episodes and who-knows-what else. Thujone is a chemical compound that is present in wormwood. It has a menthol-like odor and it was thujone that was blamed for anti-social behavior that some drinkers showed after drinking absinthe half the night. Of course, the fact that absinthe had an alcohol content that ran has high as 70% was apparently not considered as a contributing factor.
What's in a name? Juliet knew*. Maybe all the furor over absinthe could have been avoided altogether if wormwood had been called rosewood instead. (*A rose by any other name...)
Whatever the reasons, the bottom line was that absinthe was made illegal in many countries around the world. As it happened, Spain was one that did not, and that's why the characters in Hemingway's books could enjoy it. (and Hemingway himself of course)
When I came to New Zealand, I began looking around for absinthe. What I found was that most countries have now relaxed the ban on wormwood and there are dozens of absinthe-like wannabes for sale. If you read much from The Wormwood Society though, you discover that most of them are simply cashing in on a fad. Not all are worth the high purchase price they command.
I also learned that the original absinthe will no longer be found anywhere, except as a collectible bottle. I did find some bottles (with early 1900's absinthe inside) on-line that went for around $300 per small bottle. I'm not that curious.
I know that absinthe tastes mainly like anise. As it happens, Jeanne and I have had quite a bit of experience with anise-flavoured drinks. Anis de la Asturiana was the best and most famous of several anise based drinks that we tried in while in Spain. Then there was Greek Ouzo that we first tried at The Library in Houghton, Michigan while visiting Jeanne's friends Annie and Molly. And recently, I tried French Pernod, which is described as being very like absinthe, but without the wormwood.
And real progress was made recently. While at Maison Vauron last week, I spied a bottle on a shelf that was labeled Absenteroux. I asked the Sommelier about it and he dashed away to a secret fridge in a hidden nook behind the aisles of shelves and returned with a sample for me. I was delighted. I found that Absenteroux is Vermouth with wormwood added at the legal rate of 10 mg. per liter. It also contains lemon balm and some other herbs. Unlike Archimedes, I did not shout Eureka in my moment of understanding and joy, but reacted instead with refined pleasure as I realised that I was at last tasting wormwood in all it's pleasantly bitter glory. (And not masked behind overpowering anise-ness.)
a jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou*
I bought a 100 ml. bottle of it. The 750 ml.bottle would be a much better value but we don't have room to keep it in our fridge at home. And it's not the kind of drink that you want to have every day. The picture shows the small bottle that will remain on the shelf until a special occasion warrants its opening.
I get great satisfaction from exploring and even more from advancing my knowledge by discoveries, however unimportant they may be in the greater scheme of things. I hope you didn't mind reading through this, ahh, it does sound somewhat like an essay, doesn't it? Nah, it's a report. That's my report and I'm sticking to it. -djf
*Just a note on Jeanne's bread shown above. These are Jeanne's homemade buns made from a Kiwi recipe. They are known in the grocery stores as 'baps.' (I don't know or really care why). The boys are especially fond of calling them Grammy's buns though, and asking amid shrieks of laughter, "What do You want to put on Grammy's buns?" Or saying, "I'm putting peanut butter on Grammy's buns," or "I'm dipping Grammy's buns in my stew," or "I'm going to bite Grammy's buns." You get the idea. The possibilities are almost unlimited. And Grammy is endlessly (no pun intended) patient and just smiles, and continues to make more buns.
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