The Return of Absinthe
St. Charles Avenue Magazine Food Column, November, 2004
By Michael Depp

If I were a man of fewer scruples I’d begin this story with a lie. I’d paint you a scene of some secret backroom somewhere in the darkest recesses of the French Quarter, illuminated only by dim, red shaded 19th century lamps. There would be doting girls of ill repute with powdered, heaving breasts waving feather fans and fleur de lis-upholstered daybeds, and on one of them you would find me in fully debauched, Hunter S. Thompsonesque form, eyes glassy, limbs deliriously weak with sweet toxicity, pouring ice water through a sugar cube on a slotted spoon into a glass whose contents glowed like a Halloween-green potion.

My first brush with bona fide absinthe was far less glamorous, alas, and the ramifications of imbibing it were far less scandalous than I would’ve preferred to report. I did not run screaming through the streets, challenge anyone to a duel or attempt a recitation of A Season in Hell in its original French.

The only titillating bit I can offer is that all of this transpires on the wrong side of the law. But I will come to that.

My first taste of true absinthe, verboten wormwood and all, came not long ago thanks to T. Antoine Breaux, who was offering up glasses to the bold at the fifth anniversary party for Herbsaint restaurant. While I braced myself for any manner of reaction to this 136-proof aperitif, I can’t claim anything more inebriating than a mild buzz – a fact that I’m hoping to ascribe to exaggerations of absinthe’s potency, rather than a damning assessment of the state of my liver.

Still, I was intrigued by its very presence at this fete. I thought it had been long banned, so what was Breaux doing dispensing it in New Orleans? And furthermore, what was this talk of offering it for sale?

The answers came like water trickling over the sugar cube, as days later Breaux was off to France to the distillery – a French landmark designed by Gustave Eiffel – where he concocts his resurrected absinthe.

And resurrected it literally is, according to Breaux’s telling. The New Orleans native, an environmental microbiologist by profession, became interested in the drink about 10 years ago, when he began researching its history and attempting to sort out myth from reality in its expansive lore. Eventually, he came across some unopened bottles of some of the best absinthe from the early 20th century and began efforts to divine its concoction. Four-and-a-half years later, he emerged with two redactions of the drink – Nouvelle Orleans and Verte Suisse 65, which he began selling worldwide through a French distributorship in July.

The process, he says, was arduous. “The correct ‘formula’ is not a simple recipe, but is an art that involves everything from essential characteristics of herbs as influenced by terroir, climate and harvesting techniques; antique methods for preparation of suitable wine spirits (and) antique methods and equipment associated with absinthe distillation,” he says. “Learning what was necessary took years of my time, numerous trips to Europe and as far as the sum of money, I lost count long ago, but it took virtually everything I had to make it possible.”

His description certainly put me in mind of a certain well-known Mary Shelley character, holing away in a laboratory not with pilfered limbs and organs but rather beakers of aniseed, licorice, hyssop, fennel and that most potent ingredient of all, wormwood, whose toxic ingredient, thujone, was blamed for addled minds, incurable addiction and madness. Absinthe was subsequently barred from these shores in 1912, though the debate over the real reasoning behind it continues.

Absinthe is currently legal in parts of Europe (where tales of its abuse have again begun to surface), but the halcyon days of “the green fairy” had long passed, Breaux says, in a contemporary market littered with mostly poor, unstudied product. “In the world of absinthe you can get away with doing that because nobody has any basis for comparison,” he says.

Hence his own entrance to the market. Though once the science of its distillation had been perfected, there was the lingering matter of its inadmissibility to the U.S. to consider.

“Presently, the status of absinthe in the U.S. is similar to that of unpasteurized cheese,” he says. “It is simply not an FDA approved beverage.”

What this distills to, if you will, is that the only way one can purchase Breaux’s absinthe in the U.S. is to do so through his Web site, www.vintageabsinthe.com. Yet doing so doesn’t necessarily put the transaction above board. U.S. Customs has the right to seize shipments, although Breaux says, in his experience, they never have. “I come into the country, go through Customs and have the bottles inspected,” he says. “No one knows what it is, or really cares. I haven’t run into any legal difficulties because it’s laissez faire. It is a legally produced drink. It is subject to European standards. It’s not a clandestinely produced product.”

Breaux hopes, oddly enough, that absinthe will remain unfriendly with the law. “Right now, because it’s not legal, it precludes big liquor manufacturers from entering the market and muddying the waters,” he says. “If suddenly the doors were to swing open and it would become legal, it would be a sad day.”

A reversal of U.S. absinthe policy seems unlikely, though Breaux has not been timid about calling attention to his efforts. He has contributed to two recent books on the subject of absinthe as well as making television appearances on the BBC and “The Thirsty Traveler.”

Those passing through the Loire Valley in France, meanwhile, might even be able to sample Breaux’s absinthe directly from the still if Breaux happens to be there, distilling and bottling, during his several annual trips. The distillery – Distillerie Combier – gives tours, and there’s more information at www.combier.fr.

For my part, I’m hoping to come across Breaux’s distillation again in the near future, preferably in a room heady with red velvet, Moulin Rouge extras and opium-eating painters and novelists. Perhaps I’ll bone up on Rimbaud until then…