There are a number of variations of this ritual (see below) but the main aim is to create a 'louche', pronounced 'loosh'. This is where water is added to absinthe (usually poured over sugar), causing the transparent green liquid to become an opaque, murky whitish colour.
Historically, absintheurs performed this process very slowly, watching each individual drip cut a milky pattern into the emerald green absinthe below. Perhaps their vivid hallucinations were partly due to the hypnotic effect of these drips - drip. drip. drip. drip. zzzzzzzz.
Sugar Cube
Fire
Water
Optional items:
Absinthe brouilleur
This is a mixer that sits on top of glass and holds both the sugar and water, allowing them to drip slowly and regularly into the glass.
Absinthe stirrers, carafes, pitchers, water fountains…
There’s a lot of paraphernalia to be collected if you’re keen.
Pour ¾ of a shot of Sebor Absinth TM into a classic absinthe glass.
Rest an absinthe spoon on the glass.
Place a sugar cube onto the spoon.
Pour remaining Sebor Absinth TMe over sugar.
Set the sugar alight.
a while until it bubbles
and begins to caramelize.
drop the remaining sugar
into the absinth and stir it in.
parts water to 1 part
absinthe.
This version of the ritual is very similar, but there’s no fire involved.
- Place spoon and 1 or 2 sugar cubes onto the absinthe glass as before.
- Drip water, very slowly, onto the sugar cube.
- Add water until there are about 3 parts water to 1 part absinthe.
This version of the ritual focuses on the louche process - you can watch the absinthe turn very slowly from deep green to milky white. The louche occurs because the components of absinthe that are not soluble in water come out of solution and make the drink turn cloudy. The milkiness you can see is the anise, fennel and star anise suspended in the liquid. It makes sense, then, that these flavours are enhanced by adding water to absinthe.
This ritual's not a traditional one, but great fun all the same! You can get absinthe sipping pipes here on the Sebor Absinth TM website.
- Fill the main bulb of the pipe with crushed ice.
- Pour absinthe onto the ice - you can use one or two shots.
- Suck! You'll get a mouthful of icy smooth absinthe, and the added aeration can help the alcohol take effect faster.
It's impossible to pinpoint the exact birth of the ritual, surrounded as it is by myth and legend. But it seems that absinthe was being drunk with added water and sugar from at least the 1850s, if not earlier. From this time illustrations and engravings show that a kind of long spoon or stirrer was often served with absinthe to help dissolve the sugar.
The absinthe spoon seems to have come into use from about the 1870s, although how widespread this was we can't be sure. Paintings and cartoons from the time featuring absinthe tended to depict (or ridicule) the Parisian bohemian lifestyle; while these spoons may have been used throughout Paris, we can't be sure when usage became established elsewhere. There are many different spoons to be seen from that time: spoons with engravings of popular absinthe brand names; commemorative spoons, like those celebrating the opening of the Eiffel Tower in 1889; spoons designed with intertwining absinthe leaves.
Certainly at its peak in Paris, absinthe was never drunk neat or in a shot form as we often do today. Tastes for alcoholic drinks were much sweeter, consequently sugar was nearly always added. There were some famous variations on the absinthe-sugar-water combination. Ernest Hemingway drank champagne with his absinthe, in place of water, while Toulouse Lautrec famously drank his with cognac, a combination called a 'Tremblement de Terre' (Earthquake). Some people used white wine instead of water, in an 'Absinthe de Minuit' (Midnight Absinthe). The first historically recorded cocktail was reportedly made with absinthe, the 'Sazerac', in which the inside of an Old Fashioned glass is coated with absinthe before a cognac mixture is added.
