The guy looks more like Matt Damon than a 16th-century Italian astronomer, but when Ted Breaux gets going you'd swear you know how tear-your-hair-out frustrating it must have been for Copernicus to try convincing folks that the Earth and other planets revolve around the sun.
You see, the New Orleans-born microbiologist single-handedly revived this once-celebrated and since-demonized spirit.
"Absinthe was served in every good bar before 1912," he says during a recent visit to Tampa Bay, where at Ciro's Speakeasy and Supper Club he's leading a talk and tasting of his Lucid brand of absinthe.
Who doesn't know the herbaceous drink's reputation for producing raving madmen (and women)? The artist Van Gogh, whose little ear incident was allegedly fueled by absinthe, remains something of a poster boy for the spirit's supposed evils.
But it wasn't until temperance scolds curiously teamed up with the wine industry, jealous of absinthe's growing popularity, that the drink was finally banned. Even after Prohibition ended, absinthe remained illegal.
That is, until Breaux happened upon an old bottle of absinthe.
Curious about its bad boy rep, Breaux did what any competent scientist would. He tested the stuff. Armed with a mass spectrometer, he reverse engineered the booze. Turned out that absinthe's key ingredient, thujone, a hallucinogenic toxin found in wormwood, wasn't the chemical culprit it had been made out to be. Harvest and distillation of the plant effectively erases this poison from the final potion. In other words, absinthe was no more of a drug than any other alcoholic drink.
Convincing officials in America and France wasn't so easy. But hard data and hard-fought legal battles led to victory in 2007, when absinthe was exonerated.
"The French were amazed that it took an American to revive a French tradition," he says with a laugh.
Of course, cleaning up absinthe's image since hasn't been easy. Breaux, who obsessively recreates original absinthe recipes in his wonderful Lucid absinthes, travels the globe, teaching about the joys of this infamous tipple.
At Ciro's, Breaux demonstrates the proper way to prepare a traditional louche. That is, turn absinthe cloudy — and tastier — by adding water. A highfalutin absinthe fountain is nice but not necessary. Still, watching the cold water drip from one onto a sugar cube on top of a specially designed slotted spoon and into the glass of absinthe is admittedly fun. The key is making sure you use enough water, Breaux explains. If you can see a clear layer of floating absinthe (meaning you have too little water for it to dissolve into the cloudy mix it should), add more water.
Also, new and resuscitated brands of absinthe are popping up all the time. Be careful to read labels carefully, as even some older brands now rely on dubious enhancements such as yellow number five. Lucid is made from natural herbs and other ingredients in France's Loire Valley.
Absinthe has a long tradition as an ingredient in cocktails. Among my favorites is the Corpse Reviver #2. Way old-school cocktail with a Halloween name, the Corpse Reviver #2 just happens to be a lovely and very complex cocktail.
Corpse Reviver #2
Ingredients:
1 ounces gin
1 ounce Cointreau
1 ounce Lillet Blanc
1 ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice
1-3 drops absinthe
Directions:
Shake all ingredients together with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish by dropping in a stemless cherry.
Note: Please don't use some Day-Glo excuse for a maraschino cherry packed with artificial colors and flavors. Hunt down a jar of real maraschino cherries. Luxardo, the same company that makes maraschino liqueur, also produces marasca cherries in syrup.
This article appears in Nov 24-30, 2011.