Make your own absinthe
If you are a high-ranking absinthe nerd like me you’ve undoubtedly seen one or two ”make-your-own-absinthe-sets” on different websites? My firm opinion is that they are humbug and I wouldn’t recommend anyone to buy them. There are also videos on YouTube which describes how to make your own absinthe, they aren’t much to feed a hippo with either (excuse my expression). So far I haven’t taken you through the process of absinthe distilling, we will come to that later, but I will tell you some things right now. Absinthe MUST BE DISTILLED! These absinthe-DIY-sets come with instructions to simply macerate the herbs in a basic alcohol, like vodka, like some kind of drunk-tea! What you get then is something incredible bitter and is not absinthe at all. At least in Sweden it´s against the law to distill on your own and I imagine that goes for many other countrys as well. Even if you are allowed to distill at home you have to keep track of certain temperatures, know how to separate the good bits from the bad.
I recently saw that the Valkyria Distillery offers the possibility to help you develop and produce your own absinthe! I thought this would be an awesome birthday present to myself when I turn 30 (in about 2 years) but pretty soon I came to understand that this might not be as practical as I’d have hoped. If I wanted to go with the more affordable alternative and base the recipe on Valkyria´s own recipe, but with some personal twist, use their bottles but design my own label, then it would cost approximately 650 Swedish crowns (about $62) per bottle. And I would have to order at least 100 bottles. After that we have to add taxes, Systembolaget´s fees (the Swedish alcohol monopoly, it would have to go through them) and some other additional fees. My point is that this might be all well and good for a restaurant or a pub, but for a person like me it would cost a lot of money, and it would be a lot of absinthe! What if I’m not satisfied with the result, then I have 100 bottles that I’m not going to drink. I would feel like a complete idiot. If you want to make your own recipe from scratch they can help you with that as well, but of course it will take more time and it will cost more, a lot more I’m guessing