My best Absinthe so far...

[sparky marky]

To Kiwi Bruce from esxman
certainly am going to macerate and redistill .First I need to get some of the more unusual seeds to get the actual plants before I start .Btw watched a Nat Geo documentary a year or so back , they showed an American lab guy in France reviving the lost art of absinthe making .He has a very old copper still , and all his ingredients were in whole plant form , hung up to dry , I suppose either to not dilute the primary alcohol , or to bring out flavours .He bottles the stuff and markets it . First I think I need to grow my angelica and hyssop etc first .I just got some a amylase from Uk , so first ventrue will be a stab at a cornflake or rolled oat whiskey, while I am waiting from my plants to grow !

Dried herbs lose their green grassy flavour which is a good thing. I dry all my herbs for a couple of weeks. If you're in the U.K. Artemisia absinthium grows very easily and happily, as does Pontica, lemon balm...
Iv had less good luck with hyssop and Angelica. But that might be because I'm a novice in the garden.
I have fennel too but obviously growing enough anise and fennel would be difficult....

Whatever you do, it's a super rewarding hobby. It was my birthday yesterday and my wife bought me a bottle of jade terminus. Iv still got a ways to go before I'm quite on THAT level lol

[kiwi Bruce]

bottle of jade terminus. Iv still got a ways to go before I'm quite on THAT level lol

Don't kid yourself...just take it one step at a time...each new addition/new experiment, will bring you another step closer to where the "BIG BOYS" play. Keep good notes, include tasting notes...but above all remember the "BIG BOYS" started at the same place we have to...with generalized and vague hundred year old treatises that don't include any tasting information at all. The guys that restarted Pernod fils found this out. They claimed to have been working from an old recipe they had found, however when their brew was compared to a rare bottle from 1905 it was way off, lacking the citrus and coriander flavors of the original...so we get to call bull shi# on that, they had to go back to the drawing board on that one. That friends, is exactly where we are after a hundred years, back to the drawing board. My consolation in all of this is...there were 90 plus absinthe distilleries in Pontarlier alone, in the 1880's and there were 25 towns in Switzerland and France making just Absinthe. How many different tasting Absinthes where there ? It had to number in the hundreds. So...if your a little conservative in your recipe construction, by that I mean...I don't think that there was a chipotle flavored Absinthe, (but that could just be me) you could be very close to one of the hundreds of Absinthes made a century ago. There is no way to tell. I think the count is up to 40 plus herbs that could be used in conjunction with the trinity, and hardly any distiller used more than five or six. One of the few tasting comments I've seen about an American Absinthe was about Dempsey's of Boston...they said it tasted "spicier" than the French Absinthes they were used to...Well what the hell does that mean ? Spicy, what...like pumpkin pie ?

My goal in the pursuit of Absinthe excellence is to make a drink that I find amazing...and of course...share the recipe here.

[kiwi Bruce]

Excuse the rant...Happy Birthday Sparky Marky.

[skow69]

they showed an American lab guy in France reviving the lost art of absinthe making

Sounds like Ted Breau, who eventually authored the Jade line, which he now produces in partnership with Distillery Combier of Saumur, France. The story (as I heard it) goes that Breau was an American professional chemist and avid absintheur. His first offering was Lucid, which, along with Keubler, was the first commercial absinthe available in the US, and instrumental in introducing the beverage here. Contrary to popular belief, there never was an official ban in America, but it disappeared due to lack of availability caused by the ban in the rest of the world. Breau moved to France where samples of the pre-ban product were available, and set about chemically analysing some of them in order to reverse engineer the recipies.

I would like to see that documentary. I will have to look for it.

[alf]

I do not know if you know the manual Lebeaud of the 19th century, but I use it as a work reference for some of my recipes ...
It can be consulted here: http://oldu.ispeed.org/docs/1_Artisanat ... .Roret.pdf
For absinthe, page 234 of the pdf (221 in the book).
I can try to translate this part, if google trad is not enough

[kiwi Bruce]

alf... thank you for that, now to try to get a handle on what it says ! This should be interesting !

[NZChris]

Thanks for that, alf.
I have been thinking about trying to make an Absinthe based liqueur. I've used page 235 (222) to write up a protocol for making myself a version of his Absinthe Cream liqueur. The only thing I'm missing is the peppermint.

[alf]

there is a lot of recipes... like if you enter "ice cube recipe" on google, 1 060 000 results

another book on it? http://www.museeabsinthe.com/Fritsch-French.pdf

[kiwi Bruce]

And again thanking you...another great book I've never seen before.

[NZChris]

I spent some time today translating and scaling some of the recipes to suit my mini still. There are some ideas that are new to me that I might try.

[alf]

I use a micro still too, for gin, absinthe, blueberry and other little things.
These old books give recipes with volumes too big for me too, lol.
I was able to read (and observe) that the heating time is very important in the nature of the esters collected, and that the same product distilled in a large pot and a small one do not have the same final taste.
With my 3.5 liter pot I keep warm (50-65 ° C) for two hours or more before going to the boil. This helps a little to improve the complexity ...

[NZChris]

I let my 1300ml still take over an hour to produce the first drip. Total time with heat on until the last of the keeper product is 4 1/2 hours.

At the end, I've been adding 200ml of water to the boiler and collecting 200ml of flavorful distillate and oils to add to the next run.

I've only recently realised that the spent coloring herbs can be added to the next run, so I'll be saving them in future.

[sparky marky]

I have a glass jar of tails from the last run that also has all the colouring herbs soaking in it.
Gonna toss the whole lot into the still for the next batch.

Only problem with absinthe is that it takes me so long to get through a bottle I don't get a chance to make it that often. I currently have about 10 liters at 70% from the last three batches I made, can I REALLY justify making more???

[Bolverk]

What a great read

[NZChris]

Thanks for bumping this Bolverk.

I'm still growing the botanicals that thrive here, but haven't made any for three seasons as there is still plenty in the drinks cabinet. I do like my Absinthes, but there are plenty of options that are less trouble to serve, especially when I don't have the proper dispensers and glassware needed to provide the full experience.

[NZChris]

I do have a quick and easy method of pouring a glass that eliminates all of the traditional theatrics and have just poured one using my 2021 batch.

Yummy.

[Bolverk]

Yeah, of course.

Lol I don't blame you for finding a different serving method... i suspect the traditional way is mostly pomp and pageantry.

I just got an air still (dont want to contaminate my main still) so I'll be working on making my own absinthe here soon. Mostly just doing a lot of reading and note taking to wrap my head around all that is absinthe.

I may try to grow some petite and grand wormwood once I get moved. Although I my be in to warm of a climate.... we'll see.

[Reefer1]

I have bottle of 80 abv absinthe i made last year in my air still, it turned out ok for a first attempt, the problem was getting the final green colour, i think i used spinach but it lost the colour pretty quickly, i will take a note of the ingredients you listed Nig.
May be try that next time, thanks

[Bolverk]

I have bottle of 80 abv absinthe i made last year in my air still, it turned out ok for a first attempt, the problem was getting the final green colour, i think i used spinach but it lost the colour pretty quickly, i will take a note of the ingredients you listed Nig.
May be try that next time, thanks

I just really started researching absinthe so I could be wrong here, but there are 2 things worth mentioning...
1 being your bottling proof was too low, absinthe is traditionally bottled at 136pf. The higher alcohol content will keep things a more stable for longer. Honestly I'm surprised your were already louching at 80pf.
And
2 while the green will definitely fade to a brown, additives like orris root are a fixative and will help stabilize the flavor and colors a bit longer.

[NZChris]

I have bottle of 80 abv absinthe i made last year in my air still, it turned out ok for a first attempt, the problem was getting the final green colour, i think i used spinach but it lost the colour pretty quickly, i will take a note of the ingredients you listed Nig.
May be try that next time, thanks

My ABV in the bottle is whatever I got from the distillation.

Sticking to the coloring botanicals used in old recipes works for me. Spinach isn't on any list I've seen. That said, color isn't all that critical. When I didn't have all of the correct botanicals growing in my garden, I made a very nice pink version of Absinthe using Hibiscus flowers.

[MooseMan]

I have bottle of 80 abv absinthe i made last year in my air still, it turned out ok for a first attempt, the problem was getting the final green colour, i think i used spinach but it lost the colour pretty quickly, i will take a note of the ingredients you listed Nig.
May be try that next time, thanks

My ABV in the bottle is whatever I got from the distillation.

Sticking to the coloring botanicals used in old recipes works for me. Spinach isn't on any list I've seen. That said, color isn't all that critical. When I didn't have all of the correct botanicals growing in my garden, I made a very nice pink version of Absinthe using Hibiscus flowers.

I listened to a podcast recently and the guest was an absinthe guru.
His research found that some French distillers used spinach as a colouring botanical, but there were particular steps taken to ensure the vegetal and slightly metallic flavour was not extracted from it during maceration.

[Reefer1]

When i made my absinthe, i didnt want to put artificial colours in it, as mouseman says the french have used spinach, and as you can get it in any supermarket i took the easy route, it didnt affect the taste, gonna do some looking around on the web see where i can get the ingredients for the colorant.

[Bolverk]

I read mugwort was used by some.

I also read here that someone did an experiment comparing mugwort, Petite wormwood, and something else and they all had vastly different flavors.

[NZChris]

When i made my absinthe, i didnt want to put artificial colours in it, as mouseman says the french have used spinach, and as you can get it in any supermarket i took the easy route, it didnt affect the taste, gonna do some looking around on the web see where i can get the ingredients for the colorant.

Try garden centers and seed suppliers. I grow all of mine.

[MooseMan]

I read mugwort was used by some.

I also read here that someone did an experiment comparing mugwort, Petite wormwood, and something else and they all had vastly different flavors.

I'd love to see that experiment Bolverk!

I can't get wormwood in the wild near me, but mugwort is everywhere. I've used it for hopping beers, or more specifically my version of a gruit.

[Bolverk]

I'd love to see that experiment Bolverk!

I can't get wormwood in the wild near me, but mugwort is everywhere. I've used it for hopping beers, or more specifically my version of a gruit.

If you search mugwort in the absinthe sub forum, you'll find it has mixed reviews. The people that have tried it say is similar to petite wormwood but milder. You also find the some people are against it on principle and wouldn't use it as a substitute for petite wormwood...

I'm having a hard time finding artemisia pontica, I may try my first absinthe with the mugwort, at least until I can actually find a vendor/grow it myself.

[Reefer1]

gonna have to brush up on my wild plants and herbs, all my ingredients where bought dried, guys dya reckon fresh is best compared to dry.

[Bolverk]

gonna have to brush up on my wild plants and herbs, all my ingredients where bought dried, guys dya reckon fresh is best compared to dry.

Sorry man absinthe newbie myself...

All my reading suggests best is subjective. Fresh and dried do taste different, so it's really up to you and what you want it to taste like.

I do think it's telling that wormwood back in the day was aged in barns like tobacco for X# of years before use though.

[NZChris]

If I have fresh available, I use it, but I've never done a side by side to check which is best.

It's pretty hard to make a bad Absinthe if you stick to the old herb bills and methods.

[Reefer1]

Ye i would agree Chris, my first absinthe was pretty good, the only thing i would say i put a little too much anis seed and star anise in it, it masks some of the background flavours a little, its like a super powerful Pernod.
Ya dont need much to get a wobble on at 80% lol.