Absinthe - The Green Fairy

I think this post is long over due, don’t you? I´ve poked this particular bear a few times so far but but not elaborated very much, so let’s get all in it today.

When my brother got interested in whiskey and started to learn about how it is produced he said that it was a real craftsmanship, an art. I thought he wanted to be dramatic, but since I started to read up on absinthe I´ve come to know what he ment. To make absinthe might not be too hard, but to make really good absinthe takes attention to detail. It's a lot that could effect the outcome, everything from how fast you heat the still, actually what kind of still you use, how long it should be kept at a certain temperature, what parts to use and what parts to discard, which herbs to crush and which to keep whole. It´s fantastic really, and I understand that smaller distilleries, specially those who do everything by hand, are skilled at what they do and should be proud of their product! 

1 - THE HERBS

I’m not going into all the herbs or how they are grown, should anyone be interested in that then please send me a message. All the herbs used for absinthe is traditionally medical herbs, but nowadays distilleries experiment with all kind of ingredients, non-medicinal too. 

For a genuine absinthe there are three herbs which should ALWAYS be used, the whole trinity of absinthe: grand wormwood (Artemisa Absinthium), sweet fennel (Foeniculum Vulgare) and green anise (Pimpinella Anisum). If you use star-anise instead of green anise, then it´s technically not absinthe, although you can ADD it, but never REPLACE something with it. Apart from this trio, you are free to add any botanicals that you want and change the proportions of them. For example: Mead Base only uses 6 herbs while Eichelberger 78 Verte uses 26 different herbs. If you do it right then more herbs should give a more complex taste, but if you do it right then you don’t NEED more than 6 herbs (I´m looking at you Mead Base, you beautiful bastard)!

Distillers are very picky with the herbs that they use since it lays the foundation for the whole product. If shit goes in, shit comes out, simple as that! Just because you’ve bought good quality herbs from someone befor does not mean you will get it every time, and so the quality of the botanicals has to be checked every time. Many distillers grow their own botanicals and in that way they can control the quality throughout the season and make sure they get what they want. Further more, not all parts of the herbs are used in absinthe so the distiller have to collect and crush the seeds from the anise and fennel, remove the stems from the wormwood, pick the flowers from the hyssop and so on. This is hard and time-consuming work I tell you. But all this is one of the factors that decides if your absinthe is going to be good, bad or excellent! 

2 - MACERATION

A fancier name for the same process as when you make a cup of tea (but in this case with booze). The herbs are mixed with alcohol (usually right in the still), everything is heated to very specific temperatures and rests that way, usually between 12 and 24 hours. In this process all the good stuff, taste, aromas, essential oils and more is drawn out of the herbs, but you also get all the bitterness from the wormwood for example, and the result is something incredible bitter and foul. The alcohol percentage of your alcohol base will effect which compounds that are dissolved and which ones that are not. If you use a base of 70% abv it will dissolve more water-based and less oil.based compounds than say an alcohol base of 95% abv. I’m told that the golden line in between is about 85% abv. This is as far as the ”make-your-own-absinthe-kits” get you. Before people started distilling this stuff, this was finished medicin and I’m not surprised people didn’t want to take it.

3 - DISTILLATION

I´m sure most of you already know how distillation is done, in theory at least, but I’ll talk about it a bit anyway. Before you distill this ”alcoholics tea” you add some water and, if you have it, the tail from any earlier distillation (more about that below). In this step of the process, temperature is key. You can’t heat it to much, then the herbs will burn and you get nasty flavors and colors, use to little heat and you won’t get it done properly. Depending on the type and size of the still, it can take hours to get to the right temperature, and then you have to keep it there. 

The first part that comes through is called the head/heads, this is thrown away. Apparently metanol (poisonous alcohol, the kind we don’t want to drink) have a lower boiling point than ethanol (less poisonous alcohol, the kind we want to drink) and so it comes with the head. This is more important if you distill your own alcohol base, if you buy it then there should not be any methanol in it. When the head has past, there will be a slight pause in the stream from the still. What comes afterwards is the good stuff that you want, around 80% abv. I call it the body, because it is between the head and the tail, don’t know if anyone else does though. 

When most of this lovely stuff has come through the distillate starts to become cloudy, this is called the tail/tails. The tail is filled with so much essential oils and so little alcohol that it no longer can dissolve all of the oils. This is another critical point, you have got to know when to cut the tail. Cut it to fast and you will get an absinthe with little essential oils and so a very thin louche, cut it to late and you will get a cloudy absinthe with less alcohol. As I said, the tail is rich in oils, and so you can add it to the next batch you make, a terrible shame to through all that good oily stuff away.

Some distillers distill their absinthe more times than one, I’m not sure why because every time you distill the spirit, it will lose a little more of it´s flavor. Others distill each herb on its own and then mixes them until they get the result that they want. Absinthes made from essences (fakesinthes) is just a mix, they are not macerated nor distilled, and an absinthe HAS TO be distilled for it to be genuine. Yet others just macerates their herbs in alcohol and call that absinthe.

4 - ALCOHOL LEVEL CONTROL

Water is added to the destillats to achieve the right alcohol level. For blanches/bleues, this is the last step before bottling, vertes, rouges ambers and the like will continue to the next stage in the process (read below) before being bottled. Somehow the thujone level is also checked, usually they are well within the limit set for Europa and the US, but I know Canada can have a limit as low as 7 mg/l and I don’t know if it happens that the thujone level is too hight for them? Fakesinthes usually want the maximum level of thujone allowed, and the only way I can think of to increase the thujone level is by either macerate more wormwood, or to add (for example) wormwood oil. But it is known that fakesinthes that claim to have the highest allowed thujone content either has very little thujone or none at all, so maybe they doesn’t actually increase the thujone level at all?

5 - THE COLORING PROCESS

This is an optional step in the process, but most absinthes outside of Switzerland goes through it (only blanches do not). It is basically another maceration where some smoother herbs suitable for coloration is tucked into what can only be described as a giant teabag and dropped into the absinthe. You actually don’t need to put them in a bag, but it makes it easier when you are going to filtrate the absinthe later. The absinthe is heated to the right temperature and is left alone for a while (how long depends on the distiller). Usually only a part of the absinthe is colored (1/2 or 1/3 of it) and is then mixed with the rest. This second maceration adds to both taste and aroma in addition to color, this generally makes the colored absinthes more interesting to me. Another optional part is to filtrate the absinthe, but many producers choose not to, this leads to fine botanical sediment collecting in the bottom of the bottle. If you DO choose to filtrate, this is done through a simple filter, just like when you make coffee.

Those who don’t want to do the extra job or maybe want to save a pretty penny can choose to use artificial coloring, but then it´s not a real absinthe anymore. I think that if you have gone through the trouble to make a genuine absinthe so far, then you won’t skip out the coloring herbs. But if you have a product made from essences you are probably not going to care enough to use coloring herbs. Natural coloring with botanicals goes a long way, but if you want to have say black absinthe, or neon green, yellow, blue, red or purple, then you kind of need artificial coloring.

If you want to know more about the different coloring herbs of each type of absinthe, then I recommend that you read my posts especially dedicated to each type. All of them are described in short in my post ”Absinthe 101 - Part 3” and there you’ll find links to a more complete description of each specific type.

6 - MATURING AND BOTTLING

Leaving the absinthe to mature before bottling is also an optional step in the process and not all absinthes are matured. Some let them rest for a week, others for three months and some for many years. One could say that it is historically accurate to store absinthe for a few months since it often was during the pre-ban era. Maybe it was safer to move it in big, sturdy barrels and then bottle it where it was suposed to be sold, I don’t know. 

As with brandy or whisky, the maturing process adds to the absinthes color, aroma, taste and mouthfeel (and price). I seems like the most common way to mature absinthe is in oak barrels, but the producers are often not very forthcoming about what kind of oak, if it is a first fill cask and sometimes not even for how long, all the yummy information a whisky-drinker would take for granted.

If the absinthe have matured on oak casks they usually get the titel ”oak-aged" or the letters FDC on the label. FDC is short for ”fût de chêne” which is French for ”oak casks”. Distillers often ages their limited editions, but there is some absinthes that is not limited editions but still are being aged before bottling. Therefore, if it says on the label that the absinthe is a limited edition and barrel-aged, it doesn’t mean that it necessarily is better than a ”standard” absinthe. One example of this is Gustave Barrel-Aged, a limited edition, it has matured for ”months”, the distiller didn’t want to specify how long, but it doesn’t taste very different from the original Gustave. Then we have Grön Opal, it has matured for three months, but that is nothing they brag about. Then we have Jade Liqueurs´ absinthes which all have been matured for 3 whole years before they are sold, and they are no limited edition!

Finally the absinthe is ready for the bottle! If the absinthe is colored it should be bottled in bottles of dark or green glass, this is because light degrades the color (at least chlorophyll in vertes and the red color from hibiscus in rouges). The most optimal container would be one in ceramics, I have one such absinthe, but that reviled itself to be a blanche. Blanches can be stored in whatever container you want since it has no color that can degrade… well, almost any container. Try to steer clear of plastic, it´s still alcohol we have here and we don’t want it to star dissolving particles from the plastic. If you have a artificially colored absinthe then you can put it in whatever bottle you want since the colors won’t degrade anyway (but no plastic).

There is actually ANOTHER step, but a very rare one, it is the step of adding oxygen to the absinthe before it is bottled. This might only have been done to one single absinthe before the ban, and so far there is only one nowadays that has gone through the same treatment: Absinthe Jade Terminus Oxygénée. In the early 20th century one argument to get absinthe banned was that absinthe absorbed oxygen from your blood, hence being an unhealthy drink. This was bullshit, of course. The step to add oxygen to absinthe before bottling was a reaction to this, it was said to be healthier than regular alcohol because it would actually enrich the blood with oxygen. This was bullshit too, of course, but fight fire with fire, bullshit with bullshit, as they say. Although, one perk that DO come with oxygenated absinthe is that it will mature even before you open it. Oxygenating absinthe is ultimately a quite unnecessary process (except for the maturing properties) so many think it is not worth the effort or money to do it. I must say that I don’t know where in the whole process you do this step, but I figure it must be after the maturing, right before the bottling. If anyone out there know anything about this, please feel free to contact me!

Now, that was quite enough for today I think, hopefully you thought it was at least A LITTLE interesting and that you learned something new.

All the best!