Absinthe. Fire. the Usual.

So the absinthe party was another success.

The offerings included:

• Willy Bouvete (Swiss)
• Kubler(Swiss)
• Tunel Black Absinthe (Spanish)
• Alandia Gold 68 (German)
• Absinthe Neuzeller (German)
• red velvet cupcakes with fresh berries
• gaucamole and creamy jalapeno salsa
• catfish pate

As mentioned before, Willy Bouvete is a le bleue and my personal favorite. I bought Kubler here (in the US) the day of the party and was pleasantly surprised. It is made in the Val-de-Travere like many other fine Swiss absinthes and was very smooth and had an excellent louche. I'm not sure how it is legal here unless the laws have changed since last year. The other "absinthes" available in the US are still a big thumbs down. Absente has no wormwood in case you were keeping score and Lucid which used some distilling loophole to reextract the wormwood out to legal levels is not technically legit AND it's not that great. A third I've been seeing around is Tournament which I haven't tried. Again, I'm not sure what trick they're using to import it. Anyway, moral of the story is that Kubler is pretty swell if you want to buy Absinthe stateside although I'll have to get back to you on the actual wormwood content and distillation process.

Guests followed the usual pattern of starting with my recommendation of milder, more authentic Swiss le bleues, moving on to the extra wormwoody and thusly VERY bitter Alandia, and put the nail in the coffin with the knock-you-on-your-ass Black Absinthe. I have to say, although it is unreasonably alcoholic and gimmicky with the black (I'm goth, ok?), the Black Absinthe is pretty good if you're not devoted to authenticity. Or if you ARE devoted to getting blitzed. The coloring is natural and the stuff actually louches a murky blue. Always a crowd pleaser. Unless you're Eric. Then you end the evening vomiting and yelling, "Witch! Poison-witch! You poisoned me!" I should add that I think he was already sick before he started drinking. No ears were excised (van Gogh joke).

Last but not least, I had the brilliant idea to light shit on fire INDOORS and put in in my mouth. This was also a crowd pleaser. No fire alarms were alarmed, no flammable objects caught fire, and my apartment did not burn down. Yay, me.

Here is video of me dicking around for the camera. I believe my exact words were, "We have to make a video so I can send it to my parents and scare them!"