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Absenta Verde -- a recipe for a Spanish Absinthe.
    #7100132 -

Here's a recipe for a Spanish Absinthe which I found online. I decided it would be no good just to parrot it, so I decided to prepare it for myself a few days ago, to judge whether it would be worth recommending. It was.

Spanish Absinthe (called "Absenta") never was outlawed in Spain like the French/Swiss Absinthes were in the early 1900s, so it continued to evolve for over a hundred years more.

Absenta typically uses somewhat different herbs, in concentrations that are usually smaller than those in the classic French/Swiss Absinthes. A benefit of the latter is that Spanish Absenta is more suitable for the bigger still, as it uses lesser amounts of herbs. It also means that it is less likely to produce hangovers when taken to excess. Here's how you do it:


------------------------------------------------------------------

ABSENTA VERDE - a Spanish verte absinthe
approx. 55% alcohol


required:

12 grams star anise
8 grams green anise (aniseed)
6 grams fennel
4 grams wormwood herb
2 grams angelica root
1 grams coriander

and also:

3 grams lemon balm (melissa)
2 grams hyssop

and also:

1.5 liters 40% alcohol (flavorless vodka)


preparation:

1..Grind the 6 maceration herbs into a powder
2..Put the herbal powder in the 1.5 liter 40% alcohol and shake well
3..Let this stand in the dark for 12-24 hours (overnight)
4..Pour the alcohol with the wet herbs into your still
5..Distill off one liter of condensate (warning: flammable)
6..Reduce the melissa + hyssop to a powder
7..Put the herbal powder into the liter of distillate and shake well
8..Let this stand in the dark for 12-24 hours (overnight)
9..Pour the Absenta through a coffee filter-paper to filter it
10.Store your liter of Absenta Verde at least two months to ripen

------------------------------------------------------------------


The Absenta I made and tested ofcourse still hadn't ripened, but already it was very promising. It had a very pleasant green color, and upon dilution with three volumes of water (as per the traditional dilution procedure) gave a slight but unmistakable louche, its color remaining yellowish with opaqueness. Its taste was dominated by the anise, but not overly so, and was quite complex with a pleasant bitterness to it.

All in all it was an interesting and rich Absinthe, distinct from the French/Swiss Absinthes but nontheless definitely a close relative.

Now comes the hard part, which is letting it ripen a few months before drinking it too often :laugh:


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Re: Absenta Verde -- a recipe for a Spanish Absinthe. [Re: Asante]
    #7329991 -

Two months later, time to give my Absenta a try.

Its a beautiful liquid with a good balanced absinthe scent. Ive just prepared it using the traditional Parisian ritual.
(petit absinthe = 20ml Absinthe + 60ml water + 1 sugarcube)

The Absenta only produces a slight louche, but a louche nonetheless. The golden yellow is preserved but there is a slight greenish tint.. just like it should be.

Mmmm its flavor is really smooth, it takes a while for the herbs to take hold. Unlike French Absinthes this Absenta is definitely one that would please many on first taste.

Its aging has caused the Absenta to become very smooth, but after a while there's the bite to the back and sides of the tongue of strong herbs. A well-balanced drink, aftertaste and aroma is delicious also. It by no means is cheap or watery, its quite mild at first but more than makes up for that later on.

What you're tasting is not overpowered, but rather dominated by anise and the other herbs blend in well. In its rich anise taste it is a bit minty, peppery, yet you clearly taste the wormwood if you know what that's like.

Here's an Absinthe thats easily made from generally available herbs at low cost, but which has quite some flavor and depth to it. I'd initiate people to Absinthe with it - its strong, typically Absinthe, yet it doesn't come on so strong as to put a novice off.

It cost me $5/liter to make, but it tastes like a $75/liter absinthe to me.

Tasty :smile:


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Re: Absenta Verde -- a recipe for a Spanish Absinthe. [Re: Asante]
    #7332261 -

Glad to hear it worked out :laugh:

:hippie:

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Re: Absenta Verde -- a recipe for a Spanish Absinthe. [Re: Asante]
    #8518912 -

For the sake od science I just took a glass of this Absenta, prepared with 20ml Absenta, one sugar cube and 50ml cold water.

The smell from the bottle was delicious and balanced. The liquid had a golden-brown color reminiscent of whiskey. There was a very slight sediment on the bottom.

Upon preparation a light but unmistakable louche was apparent. I found out this Absenta is best diluted with 2.5 parts of water (instead of the usual 3 parts) for optimum taste.

The taste was downright delicious. It aged very well. Despite the use of star anise the anise component was strongly present, but by no means overwhelmed the palette of flavors which was very balanced, and left an long-lasting pleasant aftertaste.

Aromatic, tasty, ages very well.. This is a VERY good Absinthe (or rather Absenta) to distill. Herbs are very available and used in small amounts, but its a strong-tasting, well-balanced Absenta.

Go Spain, for taking Belle Epoque Absinthe and developing it further with finesse :rockon:


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Re: Absenta Verde -- a recipe for a Spanish Absinthe. [Re: Asante]
    #11663720 -

Two and a half years later, I rediscovered my bottle, untouched for a long time.

Beautiful whiskey color, rich bouquet.. Light louche. Taste is in one word professional, with three parts water and a cube of sugar.

The Absinthe has aged wonderfully, it smoothened out and became more unified.

And to think I have a stock bottle tucked away, that is still untouched :yesnod:

I'd have no hesitation to let an absinthe connaisseur have a go a this bottle :smile:


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Re: Absenta Verde -- a recipe for a Spanish Absinthe. [Re: Asante]
    #11665975 -

Wiccan_Seeker said:
Two and a half years later, I rediscovered my bottle, untouched for a long time.

Beautiful whiskey color, rich bouquet.. Light louche. Taste is in one word professional, with three parts water and a cube of sugar.

The Absinthe has aged wonderfully, it smoothened out and became more unified.

And to think I have a stock bottle tucked away, that is still untouched :yesnod:

I'd have no hesitation to let an absinthe connaisseur have a go a this bottle :smile:


Very nice seeker :thumbup:
I love anise taste, dunno why many people doesnt...


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Re: Absenta Verde -- a recipe for a Spanish Absinthe. [Re: dstark]
    #11668771 -

Thanks for bumping this thread. I've been meaning to try making absinthe for a while, even bought some wormwood herb 2 months ago and forgot about it. Unfortunately I'm moving in 3 weeks and my distillation set-up will not be coming with me. Nice to hear that it worked out so well, though!


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Re: Absenta Verde -- a recipe for a Spanish Absinthe. [Re: astatide] * 2
    #28970043 -

On the last birthday of my Hindustani-Surinamese childhood best friend, who died of ALS, the 1 liter stone bottle I had set aside for more than a decade, was gifted to him, among things.

It was a heartfelt desire of his to distill, but ALS took him too fast, so a gift of home distilled Absenta that was aged over a decade, touched his heart deeply.

The bottle went from hand to hand, family and friends drank freely, all were taken by the refined taste of the Absenta Verde, which by then had gotten a golden hue.

Its a very fond memory.

The best day to distill Absenta is ten or more years ago.
The second best day is today :sun:


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Re: Absenta Verde -- a recipe for a Spanish Absinthe. [Re: Asante]
    #28970848 -

Very interesting - one thing I'll note is that some swiss distillers have a similarly long history, since the same families kept at it during the ban and switched from bootlegging to legitimate business when it became legal again.

How hard is distillation, for a person who has no experience in it?

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Re: Absenta Verde -- a recipe for a Spanish Absinthe. [Re: CreonAntigone]
    #28971066 -

Distilling is a no brainer.

You can even still without a still, just a wok, a pot and a bowl:





I made this diagram, and have done this.

I fermented 13% alcohol from sugar, water and turbo yeast.

Of this I put 4 liters in a pot, set it up, turned up the gas, swapped the cooling water twice, and in 1 hour I collected 1 liter of 50+% ABV which was storage stable. It wasnt tasty, but it was the first run, to liberate the alcohol and leave behind most yeast flavors.

Then, you may use brewers activated charcoal to remove the yeasty flavors.

Subsequently, you dilute it a bit, soak the strong herbs in it overnight, then redistill it to 50, 70+% with the herbs in the pot. Then soak in the mild herbs, if any, and filter.

you then have double distilled herbal liquor, like Absinthe.

This with a wok still, like in Africa:





Of course you can do something completely different. You could take tasty stock alcohol, add concentrated fruit juice from the baby aisle and dilute down to say 20%.

Now you have apple brandy, or whatever fruit cocktail have you.

Or, get honey from your local beekeeper and make a honey liqueur. 15% honey, 30% alcohol, good to go.



if you want the convenience of an aircooled tabletop distiller as a kitchen appliance, check it out:





the guy is a connaisseur, so he has mannerisms, but you totally get 1 liter of 40-ish out of one of these units.


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Re: Absenta Verde -- a recipe for a Spanish Absinthe. [Re: Asante]
    #28971085 -

Thank you for the information.

Well, here's something I've wondered. People have said if you distill 'wrong', you'll end up with a lot of methanol in the final product. There are news articles every now and then of people getting sick from a bottle of highly methanol-contaminated alcohol, especially that produced by an amateur distiller in eastern european countries. Some say that applejack, produced by freeze distillation, is quite susceptible to having lots of methanol, and that one must use a distillation method for cider that involves getting rid of the first and last products of distillation, the 'heads' and 'tails', to remove methanol.

But I have seen others contest this - by saying there wasn't much methanol in the cider to begin with, so how could the final product have a lot, and alleging that these poisonings are the result of people passing off bad products (adding anti-freeze etc) rather than distilling 'wrong'. Further, they say that a bit of methanol, even concentrated, will not be that toxic if it is taken along with ethanol.

Is there a way to distill that would result in these incidents - a way to distill 'wrong' - or is that just a myth?

One example of such a claim is here:

Quote:
If wine contains methanol but doesn't pose a risk of methanol poisoning then why is it potentially dangerous to drink once distilled? The difference is that the methanol concentration in, say, 5 gallons of wine, is evenly distributed among the 5 gallons. For someone to ingest a potentially dangerous amount they would need to ingest more than 5 gallons....or 28 bottles!

During the distillation process methanol is concentrated at the start of the production run because it has a lower boiling point than ethanol and water. The boiling point of methanol is approximately 148 degrees farenheit, which is quite a bit lower than ethanol (the good stuff). This means that methanol (148F boiling temp) will start to boil before the ethanol (174F boiling temp). This is why commercial distillers always throw out the first bit of shine they produce from each production run (more on this below).

Here are a few examples of the dangers of methanol:

If 5 gallons of wine containing the abovementioned concentration of methanol (329mg/L) were distilled, there could be as much as 8 mL of methyl alcohol in the first jar - a potentially dangerous amount.

Scale this up to a 100 gallon batch, distilled all at the same time in a large still, and a commercial distiller could potentially have a very big problem if the methanol was not discarded. Distilling 100 gallons of wine containing 329 mg/L of methanol could result in the concentration of 40ml of methanol, which could be fatal if someone drank it all at once.




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Re: Absenta Verde -- a recipe for a Spanish Absinthe. *DELETED* [Re: CreonAntigone]
    #28974835 -

Post deleted by WhoManBeing

Reason for deletion: .

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Re: Absenta Verde -- a recipe for a Spanish Absinthe. [Re: WhoManBeing]
    #28976551 -

using woks or bucket stills is just going to give you alchohol that contains alot of crap as theres no way to take out the heads/feints the resulting alc wont be very high proof either.
you can get a stove top still from ebay pretty cheap.
there is very little methanol in anything you distil from a mash/wine etc (it will get throwqn out with the heads) - the 'going blind' etc is pretty much an urban myth caused by alcoholics drinking cheap methylated (wood) spirits.

using epson salt to try and dry a lower proof is pointless , seeing as its used as a laxative all i can see happening is you giving yourself a rather bad dose of the shits.
i do however use sodium bicarb in my stripping runs as it helps clean them up before i do a final run with them.

ive made differnt absinthes lots of times and you still need to be able to chuck away the heads/tails when distilling on the herb mass as the first stuff off is milky white and tastes absolutly vile the tail end is clear but smells like wet dog and also tastes nasty , as such any sealed bucket or wok still wont work anyway to produce anything worth drinking.

Edited by pugster (10/07/24 08:01 AM)

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Re: Absenta Verde -- a recipe for a Spanish Absinthe. [Re: pugster]
    #28976563 -

Wok stills are just a starter to the hobby.

Look at this Chinese beauty: 





:naughty:


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Re: Absenta Verde -- a recipe for a Spanish Absinthe. [Re: Asante]
    #28976564 -

yeah those types are fine - i also have one o f the air stills and they work well but are small (they are great for testing out recipes)

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Re: Absenta Verde -- a recipe for a Spanish Absinthe. [Re: pugster]
    #28976567 -

I have an air still too, its the perfect device to make 1 liter of a spirit quick, like you say, to test and fine tune.


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