Season of the Witch Part II... Absinthe Dreams

Maya, the dearie on the left in the green shirt, was thoughtful enough to bring a vial of absinthe to our witchy party.

Absinthe is often called la fee verte, or the green fairy. So I guess Maya is la fee verte of our group!

In case you are not familiar with it, absinthe is a super strong anise flavored spirit derived from herbs (green anise, wormwood and florence fennel) and used for years as a medicine and tonic. It became popular as an apertif in the 18th-19th-centuries, espeically among the literary and artistic cultural movements of the Belle Epoque France. Absinthe is actually the french word for the plant wormwood, classified within the Artemesia genus (love that). There is a french saying that "absinthe rend fou" or absinthe makes you crazy...so I suppose it naturally follows that absinthe was banned in much of the Western world during the early twentieth century and is only recently re-legalized here in America (more info  here).

Personally, my absinthe associations came from this 1997 Nine Inch Nails video of the song "The Perfect Drug" from the Lost Highway soundtrack. My ex-boyfriend was completely obsessed with this and I was thus obliged to watch it over and over and over again, yeah, kinda creepy. But I'll be honest, I actually  like this video. Around 1:55 the absinthe partaking begins, I remember it always piqued my interest.

Anyway, so we went all out and prepared our absinthe the bohemian way, by mixing it with sugar and water and then dramatically lighting it on fire! (i've since discovered this is not the "right" way to do it, but we had fun!)

Addie shows us what's what:

Glowing blue fire!

We felt like we were working magic.

This method is known as the "flaming green fairy." I dig it.

Em snapped the next three of me...looks like I'm conjuring spirits!

And then we passed around our crazy green brew to share and sample.

It is seriously INTENSE!

It burns in the warmest way (is this why I was sweating the rest of the night?) and leaves a pleasant sweet licorice flavor on your tongue. It felt sort of like swallowing an enchanted potion, but maybe I'm over-romanticizing?

Next time maybe we'll try the Ernest Hemingway version, Death in the Afternoon. He said, "Pour one jigger absinthe into a Champagne glass. Add iced Champagne until it acquires the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three to five of these slowly."

You're the boss, Ernie.

Anyway, it was grand old fun trying absinthe and pretending to be hanging out with Rimbaud and Toulouse Lautrec. Or, let's say the female versions since I was clearly surrounded by modern artistes and poetesses of the purest crystalline spirits.

Next up...keep an eye out for Part III of my witchy women series: THE SPELLBOOK!