Has anyone here tried Absinthe; the "new" Absinthe?

I tried Lucid earlier this year. I didn’t have any reaction to it. I really liked the taste of it. I never knew about any of the issues about Absinthe until a friend of mine had told me about them after we tried the Lucid. I’m not really sure what I think about it, especially since I never had Absinthe before I tried the Lucid, so I have nothing to compare it to.

@Seaofclouds Did you do the whole traditional absinthe “ritual”; the absinthe spoon, sugar cube and ice water thing? And I guess there really isn’t anything to compare it to unless you have access to whatever it was, whatever kind of absinthe it was, that Baudlaire and Van Gogh were drinking.

You will never get the real anything in the united states…. its good, but if you want the real stuff you have to go over seas… same for jagermeister

absinthe is meant to not be drunk like you would other alcohol you are supposed to take it on a teaspoon or in a cup with some water and a sugar cube. Drink Absinth

@mrlaconic. O.K. but I know about the water and sugar cube business, I mentioned it in my response to @Seaofclouds above.

We bought some Absinth in France… before my son was born, and had some friends over to try it. I don’t remember anything that particularly different about it. It had a nice taste but was sweet with the whole sugar cube thing. I don’t think the stuff you get anywhere these days is like what they had back then. I don’t think they use actual wormwood any more.

Yep. With the whole setup with the sugar cube and such. All of us who drank it had a great time at first, but later we all threw up. I forgot much of what happened after a certain point.

I’ve tried it, both straight and in a variet of cocktails and can’t say I’m particularly taken by it. As for the psychoative properties I imagine that comes more from the amount of alcohol that people who drank the stuff on a regular basis were consuming than anything else.

@lillycoyote Yes we did the whole spoon, sugar, ice water thing. It was cool to do because it made the Lucid change color.

The dangerous ingredient of traditional absinthe was wormwood, which isn’t used in the modern version. I tried some of the real stuff when I went to Prague but the whole sweet aniseed flavour thing put me right off. I can’t bear aniseed.

@downtide These new Absinthes actually do contain wormwood. The Wikipedia article I posted in my details outlines the various issues surrounding the legalizing of wormwood containing liquors like absinthe and what they call “absente.”

This article from Wired also explains some of the issues.

That’s kind of why I’m asking if it might be dangerous to drink. There is wormwood in it. Though with minimal thujone in it which was apparently what was thought to be the component in wormwood that makes it dangerous.

@lillycoyote the point was that you won’t get the real stuff here. the real stuff is far more potent.. and the real stuff is supposed to be taken with water and sugar… while you might know that, most do not.. I see people talking it in shots.

In Prague, people drank absinthe neat. No water or sugar. I preferred the Becherovka. Now that is nice. No idea what’s in it though. It tastes a bit like Jaegermeister.