The Hard Life of an Absintheur

Finished work last night and went out for a quick Vietnamese meal in the city before embarking on a brief absinthe tour of two Melbourne bars, The Toff in Town and Cookie, which helpfully are in the same building as one another. (As an aside, the links above are to Age reviews of the bars; and really, they should take their photos at night, as the daylight photos on the paper's website are utterly lacking in atmosphere).

The Toff had a very limited range of brands on offer; only four, one of which was the utterly vile Green Fairy brand, which all good absintheurs should avoid like the plague.

The brand I eventually chose, which I hadn't tried before, was Jacques Senaux Blue, from Spain (80% proof). Because I always drink my absinthe with sugar and water in the traditional fashion (although most places insist on setting the sugar alight, which is flamboyant, whereas actually the water should be slowly dripped onto the sugar until it dissolves - incidentally, the only place in Melbourne where I've been served absinthe prepared in the traditional Parisian fashion was at The Croft Institute). At The Toff, the barman lit the sugar, and then served my absinthe to me in a coffee cup (!!!), which rather detracted from the occasion and aesthetic experience of the drink's ritualised preparation (his reason being that the glasses they used were so fine that the heat transfer might cause them to crack).

To say I was taken aback at such an uncivilised way of serving my drink is a major understatement...

While pleasant enough, with a strong bouquet, the Jacques Senaux Blue was not an especially good absinthe, displaying only a modest louche, and with the anise taste overwhelming the complex herbal flavours of the drink. They also do a Black absinthe, which I've had before, and which has too overwhelming an anise flavour for my taste. Besides, traditionalist that I am, I always prefer my absinthe green...

Twenty minutes later, downstairs at Cookie, despite a barman who knew his absinthe and a better range of brands on offer, the drink I was served - one of the only brands they had in stock that I hadn't previously tried, Flor Absinth, from the Czech Republic - was undrinkable. A thin, medicinal taste, absolutely no louche whatsover, and an inspid colour. Flor Absinth joins Green Fairy on my list of truly abominable absinthe brands, closely followed by the almost as bad La Fee Bohemian, which is also a mockery of everything that good absinthe should be.

One of the best absinthes I've tried that are commercially available in Australia is made by Pernod, who have a long historical association with the drink, called Aux extraits de Plantes d'Absinthe. Definitely superior to either of the brands I was served last night...

(Part one of an on-going series)