There seems to be no more appropriate way to begin something called "The Absinthe Diaries" than with a review of some absinthe, and La Fee is a prime place to begin for a number of reasons. First, it's a decent absinthe. Not top of the line, but a solid mid-range spirit. Second, it's a high-profile brand, fairly easy to track down and relatively popular as far as bottles of absinthe go. Although riding the same wave as the treacherous Hill's Absinthe, which isn't absinthe despite the name and explosive popularity among clueless young students looking to get hammered as quickly as possible but with some hint of hipness (rest assured though, there is nothing hip about Hill's or about drinking absinthe in that fashion), La Fee is a much more traditional, true absinthe, and a much better bottle to become popular than Hill's or any of the other non-absinthe absinthes stinking up the joint.

My review of this absinthe will, aside from conveying my thoughts regarding the drink itself, try to establish a couple things that will apply to this and all future absinthe reviews. Chiefly, it will run through the various things to pay attention to as you enjoy a sip of the devil's own green blood. Absinthe, like any other spirit, can either be guzzled down with disregard for anything other than getting drunk, or it can be studied and appreciated. In my opinion, that appreciation, the paying attention to various aspects of the drink and the ritual surrounding it, is the fun and interesting part -- not that I'm saying the buzz isn't nice. These aspects include the color and smell before and after the addition of water, the way in which the absinthe louches, and of course, the taste. I'm not an expert by any means, so I go through these things less as an authority and more as a way to illustrate the learning process. Keep in mind, however, that after years of studying and drinking wine, my sophistication has only gotten to the point of the big, dumb guy in Sideways, who reacts to pretty much everything by shrugging and saying, "Tastes pretty good to me."

It's fitting that La Fee was my first absinthe, as it happens to be a good absinthe with which to begin your journey into madness and moral decay. As my madness is a foregone conclusion and my morals crumble like the ancient pillars of Rome years ago, I have nothing to worry about on those fronts. I picked a bottle up in Florence, at a liquor store the name of which I do not know, on a street I cannot remember. Via something. That should narrow it down for you. That and the fact that they sold penis-shaped pasta which the proprietor of the shop tried to convince us was an ancient Italian tradition dating back to the time of Caesar himself and celebrating the pride and virility of the Italian nation, or some such lofty justification. Caesar, I don't know. If he'd said Caligula, I might have been more inclined to buy portions of his story, even if I wasn't inclined to buy his penis-shaped pasta.

I did buy the absinthe however, which caught my eye from across the street as it sat beckoning me from a display in the window. The shop stocked two varieties of La Fee -- one with 40% alcohol by volume, one with the more traditional 68%. Naturally, being a traditionalist, I went with the 68% bottle, which delighted the man to no end as he mimed taking a drink then stumbling and dancing around as he rolled his head back and forth and grabbed at what I assume to be hallucinations of beautiful little green fairies. From what I gather from the movies, they look like Kylie Minogue, which quite frankly, is perfectly acceptable to me.

Wanting to do the drink justice rather than slam it down like some over-eager and ignorant 20-something on leave in Europe from their parents for the first time (and I don't mean ignorant in a nasty sense, as we were all 20-something at some point and are all ignorant and easily duped regarding some things) and just wanting to get ripped, I held off drinking it until I'd acquired the proper accoutrements -- some fine absinthe glasses and spoons, and some quality sugar cubes. Some absinthe rituals call for you to dip the spoon in the absinthe, lace the sugar cube on it, then light it on fire. I'm not going to deny the attractiveness of that ritual, or of any ritual that involves lighting things on fire then drinking them, but I went the more sedate and traditional route once again, in which one pours a measure of absinthe into a glass, places the cube in the spoon (an absinthe spoon has holes in it, often in amusing shapes like moons or stars), then drizzles cold water over the spoon and sugar until the cube has dissolved completely. Some people used crushed ice for this, and let it drip slowly as the ice melts. The only way I have of making crushed ice is to make ice cubes then smash them with a hammer. Much like lighting things on fire, I don't have any sort of aversion to rituals that involve smashing things with a mallet, but t does tend to take away from the elegance of the ritual, not to mention the fact that it is particularly unappreciated by the downstairs neighbors.

As the sugar and water hit the absinthe -- absinthe comes in many colors, from clear to blue to glowing nuclear waste green -- the color changes dramatically. This is known as louching, and if your absinthe doesn't do it, it's probably not real absinthe. La Fee is a pretty bright green -- not the most natural of colors, but it's better than the fire engine red for which some dubious brands opt -- and it louches an appealing, opaque, pale whitish-green with a strong aroma of anise and a slight whiff of alcohol -- the whiff of alcohol being a signifier that La fee is not of the highest quality, but is still pretty good. In a world-class absinthe, however, you wouldn't get that alcohol smell.

Anise is, as you may or may not know, one of the key ingredients of absinthe, though there are several brands, some good and others hideous -- that leave the anise out. The flavor of anise, for those of you who don't watch a lot of Food Network, is more commonly known as licorice. If you don't like licorice -- and I can't say as I'm especially fond of it myself -- then the first taste of absinthe may be a bit of a jolt to the system. La Fee has a strong anise taste with a hint of something nutty. The overall effect, once you get used to it, isn't unpleasant, but it's not overly complex or interesting. It does tend to numb the mouth a bit and needless to say, the more you drink, the easier it is to deal with the taste, either because you grow to appreciate it, you grow too tipsy to care, or some combination of the two.

The hallucinogenic effect of absinthe is the greatest component of its reputation, but you're not going to get that effect from La Fee. In fact, you'll not be getting it from most absinthes. A chemical released by the wormwood root (the other key component in absinthe -- though brands that shove a big, hairy chunk of root into the bottle are usually crap, relying again on ignorance and the false belief that having such a chunk of matter in the bottle somehow make sit more authentic, when in fact it is a sign of exactly the opposite) known as thujone is what causes the absinthe effect, but keep in mind that the amount of thujone in even the strongest of modern absinthes is a fraction of what it would have been in the Victorian era.

That said, there's no reason to be disappointed. La Fee produces a very nice version of what I'd call the modern effect -- which is that it makes you very tipsy, but not stupid. For me, despite the fact that my head was spinning and I had a giddy glow about me, there was no stuttering, no slurring of words or loss of motor skills -- not that I would have jumped behind the wheel of a car. It's an "alert drunkenness" as people call it, and quite pleasant. It comes on quick -- I'm not a far-gone lush, but I'm not a lightweight, either, and my affinity for strong spirits have given me a fairly resilient and resistant constitution. Still, nearing the bottom of the glass, I was pretty well and pleasantly buzzed. I did some writing (which came out pretty good and coherent -- I rarely get that even when sober) then watched an old Bulldog Drummond mystery movie (Bulldog Drummond in Africa -- I'll get to that elsewhere on Teleport City).

So there you have it. The middle of the road. La Fee is neither outstanding nor awful. It's a decent mid-range absinthe, with respect for tradition while still giving in to certain modern conceits like the vibrant artificial green coloring. Since the artificial coloring doesn't really affect the taste in this case, I'm not hung up on it. It's a good place to begin because there's some room to go up from here, but also lots of room to go down. This is a good "social gathering absinthe," that can be appreciated and enjoyed rather than savored and exalted.

Labels: Drink