Absinthe

[tryptonaut]

Is Pernod not Pastis? I have Pernod at home...Isn't it Pastis? Or do you mean that it was absinthe before the prohibition?

Pernod switched to making Pastis after the ban.

Before the ban, this: http://www.oxygenee.com/images/Pernod-I-May.jpg
was one of the first commercial and most widely consumed Absinthes.
It's also due to original bottles like on the picture that we can exactly say today that original Absinthe did not contain tons of thujone - there are still original bottles on the market. You can sometimes get one in an auction for ~5,000 USD if you like

And by the way, Pernod makes absinthe again today - but unfortunately they make it just like their pastis, by mixing oils into alcohol (industrial production). It's not the worst commercial absinthe (actually tastes much better than their pastis!) but it tastes significantly different from real, distilled absinthes made with dried herbs.

If you're interested, the site where I got the picture from is a really elaborate absinthe site with FAQ's, old pictures, everything. http://www.oxygenee.com/

 

[tryptonaut]

Jaegermeister has been a fashion drink at partys for a few years because people thought that it helped you to relax when you had taken coke , speed and x . It has the reputation that it contains a herb extract that inh high doses has a psychoactive effect .

Not only Jägermeister has this reputation - there are other herbal liquors with "secret recipes" like Fernet Branca and Green Chartreuse that can really shoot out the lights in your brain. I can confirm that Green Chartreuse really feels like liquor from hell if you drink too much from it...

And by the way, despite the year-long ban on Absinthe, these bitters (the herbal liquors) were allowed to contain up to 35mg/kg thujone (at least in Europe). 3.5 times more than what they allowed for absinthe when it was re-legalized. And if you look at the research on thujone levels in vintage and modern absinthe, you can see that hardly any ever reached 10mg/kg at all.

 

[restin]

thanks for the info, much apreciated