How To Distill Absinthe
There are many websites giving Absinthe recipes and even tutorials and help on how to distill Absinthe, the Green Fairy, or La Fee Verte, the strong alcoholic beverage enjoyed by the likes of Van Gogh, Oscar Wilde, Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway.
If you are in the United States and you want to distill your own Absinthe, or any other alcohol, officially you need a license from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms because it is illegal to distill alcohol without a proper license.
How to Distill Absinthe at Home
Recipes and guides on the Internet include the following recipes:-
A recipe similar to an 1855 Pontarlier Recipe
– Macerate 25g wormwood (botanical name Artemesia Absinthium), 50g fennel and 50g anise in 950ml 85% abv in a 2 liter flask.
– Add 450ml distilled water.
– Do a pot still distillation, collect 950ml of distillate.
– Separate 400ml of the distillate and mix in 10g of Roman Wormwood (Artemisia Pontica), 5g lemon balm, 10g hyssop and macerate at 60C.
– Filter and mix with the remaining 550ml distillate and dilute to 74% abv to make 1 liter of Absinthe.
(Recipe from www.homedistiller.org and originally from “Scientific American”, June 1989)
Other recipes online include additional herbs such as sage, mint, galangal, ginger, sweet flag, licorice, aniseed, cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamon.
Distillation is not only illegal in some countries but it is also complicated. Thankfully, there are kits available online from different suppliers to enable you to make Absinthe at home simply and easily without the need for distillation.
Absinthe Essence Kits
AbsintheKit.com produce Absinthe essences for both the Absinthe industry and for consumers. The essences are made with top-quality essential oils and herbs and by high tech carbon dioxide distillation. Each essence is already distilled, all you have to do is mix with a neutral alcohol base such as Everclear or vodka and then you can enjoy your very own Absinthe at home.
The Absinthe essences can either be purchased in 20ml bottles at $3.95 ($4.95 for Strong 55) which is enough to make one 750ml bottle of Absinthe, or in a 280ml bottle (to make 14 bottles of Absinthe) in a kit with artistic bottle labels and a handy plastic measure. The kits are $29 or $39 for the Strong 55 kit.
Four types of essence are available – one to make a classic green Absinthe, an orange oil flavored essence, an essence to make clear Swiss style Absinthe and a stronger essence to make an Absinthe with a more bitter wormwood flavor. All essences contain real wormwood and other traditional herbs such as aniseed and fennel. The Strong 55 gives a thujone content of 55mg per 750ml bottle of Absinthe and the other essences give a content of 35mg.
There is a guide on how to use the essences on the AbsintheKit.com website.
AbsintheKit.com also sell replicas of antique 19th century Absinthe glasses, such as the Pontarlier glass, and Absinthe spoons, such as the famous Eiffel Tower spoon made to commemorate the opening of the Eiffel Tower in 1889. Using the proper Absinthiana (Absinthe equipment) will really put you in the right mood to prepare and drink your perfect Absinthe drink.