Hip Sips

Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

    Rumors of drunkenness, debauchery and madness abound—but nobody, it seems, has come up with definitive grounds for the 100-year ban on absinthe in the United States and elsewhere. But, human nature being what it is, the forbidden-fruit factor kicked in, and interest was immediate and intense when, in December 2007, Alameda’s St. George Spirits became the only American company since 1912 to sell absinthe in the United States. (Three imported versions were available.)
    The Alameda-made absinthe is the product of an 11-year quest by St. George’s master distiller Lance Winters. “Absinthe is complex,” he says. “You have several powerful botanical ingredients fighting for dominance. You strive for balance,” using a distillation of grape-based brandy and locally grown herbs—tarragon, basil, mint, anise and fennel—and absinthe’s most important and controversial ingredient, wormwood.
    The drink was favored by artists and the avant-garde in the 18th century and rumored to be hallucinogenic. (The chemical thujone, found in wormwood, was long assumed to be the source of the green liquor’s most extreme effects on the brain, but recent research has called that into question.) It is typically served in a short-stemmed glass. Traditionally, a cube of sugar is placed in a slotted spoon over the liquor. A drizzle of water melts the sugar, which in turn clouds the absinthe and gives it a sweetness. “Ours is already sweetish and doesn’t need the sugar cube,” says tasting room manager Andie Ferman, who suggested sipping the 120-proof absinthe at room temperature for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Gulp or do shots and risk looking like the haunted woman sitting with a glass of the stuff in Edgar Degas’ famous 1876 painting L’Absinthe.
    St. George Spirits, 2601 Monarch St., tasting room open noon–7 p.m. Wed.–Sat., noon–6 p.m. Sun., (510) 864-0635, www.stgeorgespirits.com.