Myths still fuel absinthe's allure
Were you to line up famous scapegoats, along with the biblical Eve, hapless Cubs fan Steve Bartman and Mrs. O'Leary's arsonist cow, you'd have to give a nod to absinthe, the bitter, anise-and-fennel-flavored liquor. It's the most excoriated alcohol in history. While gin was once known as Mother's Ruin, only absinthe has been tried — if only in the court of public opinion — for actual murders.
The bibulous may know the story: When a laborer in Switzerland killed his wife and daughters in 1905 after drinking absinthe, the outcry was enormous. Suspicions about absinthe and its connection to an artsy, dissolute bohemian set had swirled for years. That the man in question was a notorious alcoholic who had imbibed a Sea World tank's worth of other booze leading up to the crime made no nevermind: A petition was circulated, and absinthe was outlawed in Switzerland. Similar interdictions followed in multiple European countries; in the United States, a ban on absinthe preceded full nationwide Prohibition by eight years.
That was the history Brian Robinson of the Wormwood Society related to a group at Libertine in D.C. in June. The Wormwood Society works to debunk the tangle of misinformation about absinthe, which has been legally available in the United States since 2007, and Robinson provided some historical context for the new absinthe from Mt. Defiance Cidery and Distillery in Middleburg, Virginia.
Robinson estimates there are around 50 domestic absinthes now. Mt. Defiance's is a classic old-French-style spirit, he says, “which is why it has such a clean flavor. It doesn't have a bunch of stuff competing” on the palate.
Absinthe's long-controversial ingredient (the scape-herb, if you will) is Artemisia absinthium — grand wormwood — which contains thujone, a component related to menthol. Thujone in massive quantities can cause convulsions, but legal absinthe contains less than 10 parts per million. “You'll get more thujone from the sage in your Thanksgiving stuffing” than from absinthe, Robinson says.
Peter Ahlf, Mt. Defiance's distiller, had a similar story when I later visited the distillery. “I have a hard time imagining how someone could screw up the distillation process badly enough” to even come close to the legal thujone limit, he said.
Along with its absinthe — flavored and colored largely with herbs from a farm in southern Virginia — Mt. Defiance produces rum, apple spirits and almond liqueur; a cassis is on the way. The building, which includes a beautiful tasting room for which Ahlf himself did the woodwork, stands out in a tony strip of expensive boutiques, bistros and antiques stores running through the main business district of posh vineyard-and-thoroughbred-adorned Middleburg. When Marc Chretien, founder and managing partner at Mt. Defiance, initially made inquiries about getting permits, the town promised to approve the business immediately.
“It took about half an hour,” says Chretien. “I think they were just so happy we weren't another boutique.”
Chretien and Ahlf — the latter's business card lists his occupation as distiller and rocket scientist, and boasts the most “cool geek” cachet I've ever seen in such a small space — were friends before they went into business. They bring eclectic backgrounds to the gig: Ahlf, who has a degree in aerospace engineering, worked at NASA for 16 years on projects including the International Space Station and studies of how weightlessness affects the body. Chretien is a lawyer, ex-paratrooper and former adviser at the State Department who worked in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11. (A handful of other partners includes former Washington Post reporter and editor Rajiv Chandrasekaran.)
The appeal of making absinthe, Ahlf says, was partly its intriguing back story: “its popularity in the belle epoque … the long ban and then its return.” He thought that making absinthe would help Mt. Defiance stand out among the crowd of startup distillers: Production of the drink is “a fussy process,” one not many have the patience to do right.
To experience absinthe, some don'ts: Don't sip it straight; it's high-proof, so although you might get some of the flavor that way, mostly you'll get an anesthetized tongue. And please, don't set it on fire. That's largely a Czech Republic gimmick, one that seems to have been devised to hide the fact that many Czech absinthes aren't true absinthes and are best when you don't actually taste them. Try real stuff like Mt. Defiance's in a Sazerac, the classic water-drip-through-sugar-cube preparation, or a cooling Absinthe Frappe.
Looking at Mt. Defiance's bottle, adorned in greens and golds and with an art deco babe with flowers in her hair, I'm reminded that absinthe producers walk a fine line. Part of the drink's appeal is its bad-boy cachet. How to let consumers know that absinthe's history is one of unfair notoriety while simultaneously using the bohemian chic of that history to sell the drink? How to successfully associate absinthe with Oscar Wilde's magical flowers, Hemingway's heroes, Dracula whispering to Mina Harker about the green fairy in its depths, while also reminding folks that the murdery side of its reputation is silly propaganda?
Sipping Mt. Defiance's absinthe, clouded from water dripped in — the louche that's one of the signs of a true absinthe — I think the swirl of art, myth and notoriety creates a psychosomatic effect that still has power. The liquor came off the still only recently, but I feel as if I'm sipping something very old.
Even scientists are not immune to its allure. “I think the buzz you get from real absinthe is brighter,” says Ahlf. “There's more than just ethanol in that bottle.”
• Follow M. Carrie Allan on Twitter: @Carrie_the_Red.