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Absinthe

Spirits & brews· spirit

Absinthe

What it is

Absinthe is a high-proof spirit distilled with grand wormwood, green anise and fennel, historically associated with 19th-century France and Switzerland.

What it tastes like

The house reads it as anise, wormwood, fennel, cooling ✳ — a known palate, not yet a cited measurement. Among its measured molecules: thujone.

What goes with it

    13 more go with it. See them all in the full library →

    Salt and acid

    Salt

    Salt not measured yet.

    Acid

    Acid not measured yet.

    Unusual pairings

    Pairs the library can cite that almost nobody makes.

    Every one of its 2 compounds carries a paper the library can cite.

    • thujonearomaterpenoidMeasured in 4 of 338 ingredients.cite
      Absinthes produced according to historic recipes: mean 1.3 ± 1.6 mg/L, range 0–4.3 mg/L. A vintage Tarragona absinthe of 1930: 1.3 mg/L. Two Swiss Val-de-Travers absinthes from traditional small distilleries: 9.4 and 1.7 mg/L. Against an EU legal ceiling of 35 mg/L printed in the same paper. THE REVIEW REPORTS ITS OWN WORKING GROUP'S PRIOR MEASUREMENTS; no chromatography was performed for this document, which is why this claim is classed `review-presence`. Values this review attributes to other authors (260, 60–90, 1.8–45, 6 and 0.01 mg/L) are all refused. — Padosch et al. 2006, Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy (section 'Toxicological rehabilitation of absinthe', the paragraph reporting the authors' own working group's analyses (their reference 95))
    • absinthintastelactoneMeasured in 1 of 338 ingredients.cite
      'The characteristic bitterness is caused by sesquiterpene-lactone absinthin, which can still be organoleptically detected in a concentration as low as 1 g in about 70 liters.' NO CONCENTRATION IN ANY ABSINTHE IS GIVEN — the figure quoted is a detection threshold for the compound, not an amount in a bottle. A review statement, classed `review-presence`. Non-volatile, filed `taste`. — Padosch et al. 2006, Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy (section 'The rise and fall of wormwood spirits', the paragraph describing the louche effect and the drink's bitterness)

    Sources

    • Padosch et al. 2006, Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy
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