Absinthe

Man it's been a few years since a certain legal loophole allowed Absinthe to grace the streets of Europe again. I remember when it hit London back in 98 there was a special training staff were supposed to go on due to the liquors strength and its alledged propensity to make you hallucinate (I say alledged, although I distinctly remember someone climbing onto the scafolding above the DJ booth in The End nighclub one night swearing he saw a dove up there).

Most of the absinthe that is sold commercially is actually liquorice green coloured generic rubbish, only a few of the better brands (and mostly from CZ, CH or FR) actually have anything resembling the distillate of Artemisia absinthium. I was gratified to stumble across an article on Wired about the lifelong endeavours of a man named Ted Breaux to chemically recreate the original absinthe that was produced the late 18th century in Switzerland and southern France. He's so far managed to produce several highly rated absinthes Jade PF 1901, which is his analogue of the original Pernod Fils brand, and Jade Verte Suisse 65 which was only recreated thanks to an extremely rare bottle of C. F. Berger absinthe (first created in Switzerland in 1830) resurfacing.

More interestingly he's just released a liquor created from a very exclusive tobacco (alledgedly the world's rarest, and grown only in Louisianna) known as Perique. You can buy most of his stuff online, I have an order rushing to me now ....