Absinthe: 8 recipes at home

It is far from a secret that modern absinthe is fundamentally different from what was produced in the 19th century. Under the pressure of various laws, the recipe changed and, unfortunately, not for the better. In the composition of modern absinthes, one can often find food colorings, which indicates the quality of the drink itself as a whole.

If you want to feel the original taste of this herbal alcohol, to understand its essence, try making your own absinthe at home based on one of eight recipes from Vzboltay.

history of absinthe

1855 French recipe for absinthe (Pontarlier)

Step 1. Collection and preparation of raw materials

The proportions are based on 1 liter of drink. Keep in mind that the softness of the taste of absinthe with all methods of its preparation appears only after some time.

Plants, especially those used for dyeing, should be carefully sorted out, and have a bright green color; blackened leaves should be removed. This must be done, otherwise it will turn out to be too bitter a drink with an unpleasant dirty color.

1. Heads of wormwood (dried and peeled, without pieces of stems) – 25 g

2. Anise – 50 g

3. Fennel – 50 g

4. 85% alcohol – 0,95 l

Vegetable substances are soaked in edible alcohol. Soaking is carried out to facilitate the dissolution of the extracted components.

At the same time, it is either hot – in a steam or sand bath (or brewing with a hot liquid), or cold, which lasts a little longer than hot.

Solids – roots and seeds – take longer to soak than, say, flowers and leaves.

“Hot” soaking is carried out for at least 12 hours.

“Cold” soaking (normal infusion in a warm place) lasts 1 week (recommended).

When soaking in a steam bath, pressure builds up in a closed flask. To divert it, you can use the so-called. water seal or reflux condenser.

Step 2. Distillation process

Then 0,45 liters of water are added and the whole mixture is distilled in a distillation unit (distiller). The infusion is distilled along with herbs.

The distillation continues until there is no liquid left in the flask and only wet herbs remain.

This will produce approximately 0,95 liters of distillate.

Filter the residues through any available filter.

Further distillation can be continued. The remainder is very valuable, because. contains a lot of essential oil, poured into the next batch for distillation.

Distillation Tips

A tile can serve as a source of heat during sublimation. Between the tile and the flask, you can put a layer of heat-insulating material, such as asbestos.

The flask can also be overlaid with sheet asbestos (to make an asbestos coat) for better heating. The flask can also be placed in a pan with a layer of salt or sand.

From the very beginning of the distillation from the infusion, alcohol vapors begin to evaporate, saturated with the vapors of the essential oils of the herbs that were in the infusion. Just by infusing wormwood, you can get the original drink. But after distillation, it will definitely be much better in taste and effectiveness.

Step 3. Absinthe coloring

To color absinthe green, take:

1. Fine dry and peeled wormwood – 10 g

2. Dried hyssop flowers – 10 g

3. Dried lemon balm – 5 g

4. The resulting clear distillate is 0,45 liters

All ingredients are placed in a steam bath together with distillate, or better in a special apparatus – a purified copper colorator heated with water or steam – and everything is heated to a temperature of about 50 degrees. Under the influence of temperature, plants give off their natural dye chlorophyll to the liquid, as well as their aroma.

Then the resulting liquid is slowly cooled and filtered through a filter, allowing the herbs to drain well. So much water is added to get the content of 74 degrees of alcohol and get 1 liter of product at the output – this is the quantity stage.

After that, the drink is sent to a warehouse for aging – this is the last stage of quality. With long-term storage (3-4 weeks), the green color of absinthe turns yellow, this is normal.

everything you need to know about absinthe

Montpellier Swiss Absinthe Recipe

Proportions are indicated for 100 liters of drink.

1. Wormwood – 2 kg

2. Anise – 6 kg

3. Fennel – 4 kg

4. Coriander – 1 kg

5. Angelica seeds – 500 g

6. Food alcohol 85% – 95 l

Absinthe coloring

1. Roman wormwood – 1 kg

2. Turkish mint (Moldavian snakehead) – 750 g

3. Hyssop flowers – 750 g

11 ways to drink absinthe

Lyon swiss absinthe recipe

Proportions are indicated for 100 liters of drink.

1. Wormwood – 3 kg

2. Anise – 8 kg

3. Fennel – 4 kg

4. Angelica seeds – 500 g

5. Food alcohol 85% – 95 l

Absinthe coloring

1. Roman wormwood – 1 kg

2. Melissa – 1 kg

3. Hyssop flowers – 500 g

4. Veronica officinalis – 500 g

Colorless swiss absinthe recipe

Proportions are indicated for 100 liters of drink.

1. Wormwood – 2,75 kg

2. Roman wormwood – 1,125 kg

3. Hyssop flowers – 1,1 kg

4. Veronica officinalis – 1,55 kg

5. Wormwood alpine – 1,55 kg

6. Pupavka noble (Roman chamomile) – 1,225 kg

7. Anise – 5,25 kg

8. Fennel – 5,25 kg

9. Angelica seeds – 5,55 kg

10. Food alcohol 85% – 95 l

Absinthe recipe from Neufchatel

Proportions are indicated for 100 liters of drink.

1. Wormwood – 6 kg

2. Anise – 6 kg

3. Fennel – 5 kg

4. Coriander – 1 kg

5. Hyssop flowers – 1 kg

6. Peppermint – 1 kg

7. Melissa – 1 kg

8. Licorice (licorice root) – 500 g

Mash all the ingredients and soak them for 24 hours in 15 liters of 85% edible alcohol, then add 15 liters of water and distill only until you get 15 liters of alcoholic liquid.

Add 65 liters of 85% alcohol and 20 liters of water.

Absinthe coloring

Dye green with dyes – indigo blue and caramel yellow.

Note: Peppermint / Mentha piperita / Peppermint is the only one of all mints that contains menthol and has a clean, cold “minty” taste, so you can’t replace it with anything, but it’s better to buy it in a pharmacy in the form of mint tincture or oil.

Licorice of Wood / Glycyrrhiza glabra / Licorice (Licorice Root) is used as a sweetener. You can simply replace it with sugar syrup, because. it doesn’t have a bad taste.

Absinthe Recipe (From Dick’s Encyclopedia of Practical Recipes, 1903)

Composition

1. Wormwood – 15 g

2. Roman wormwood – 20 g

3. Fennel – 25 g

4. Star anise – 25 g

5. Green anise – 25 g

6. Coriander – 4 g

7. Hyssop flowers – 10 g

How to

1. Moisten with a little water, let it soak in.

2. Add 1 liter of 95% alcohol. Soak 3 days.

3. Add 0,85 liters of water. Soak for another day.

4. Overtake, having received 1,25 liters of absinthe 60 – 70%.

Color the resulting product by soaking for 10-15 days with herbs:

1. Mint – 5 g

2. Melissa – 3 g

3. Roman wormwood – 5 g

4. Lemon zest – 1,5 g

5. Liquorice – 5 g

Then stand and filter.

Absinthe Recipe (From Dale Pendell’s Pharmako / Poeia)

1. Wormwood – 30 g

2. Hyssop flowers – 8,5 g

3. Air – 1,8 g

4. Melissa – 6 g

5. Anise – 30 g

6. Fennel – 25 g

7. Star anise – 10 g

8. Coriander – 3,2 g

How to

Add 0,8 liters of 85-95% alcohol. Soak for a week, shaking occasionally.

Add 0,6 liters of water. Soak for another day.

Drain the resulting liquid, squeezing the herbs well. You will get about 1,5 liters of green liquid. The liquid must then be distilled.

The worst recipe allows you to skip this step, but in this case, this product will not be absinthe.

When distilling, replace the receiver when the distillate turns yellow. This is the fragile part. It can be saved and added to subsequent distillations, but it can spoil the already distilled product.

The final step is to stain the liquor by repeated infusion.

Absinthe coloring

1. 4,2 grams mint

2. 1,1 grams of lemon balm

3. 3 grams of wormwood

4. 1 gram lemon zest

5. 4,2 grams licorice

Color the resulting product by soaking for 3-4 days with the above herbs, filter, bottle.

You may want to add concentrated sugar syrup.

You will get about 1 liter of absinthe with a strength of about 70 degrees, similar to absinthe in the Swiss style.

Ancient recipe for absinthe

1. 1,75 liters of alcohol from 65% and above

2. 3 teaspoons bitter wormwood

3. Crushed seeds from 16 cardamom pods

4. 1 teaspoon coriander seeds

5. 3 teaspoons anise seeds

6. 3 teaspoons crushed angelica root

7. Sugar syrup

How to

Mix alcohol and wormwood, leave for 48 hours.

Crush herbs and spices in a mortar.

Add crushed herbs to the infusion.

Close tightly and keep in a dark place for a week.

The infusion is distilled along with herbs. The recipe gives 1,25 liters of absinthe with a strength of 65%. Filter.

Tips and other useful information

Keep in mind that your drink will only stay green for two to three weeks. Then, due to the aging of chlorophyll cells, it will inevitably turn yellow; which will make it less spectacular, but in the eyes of connoisseurs, it will acquire some elitism.

You can also make black absinthe. Its recipe will differ from the classic drink by using wormwood roots that do not contain chlorophyll instead of the heads and tops of this plant, as well as by using black acacia infusion or banal food coloring for subsequent coloring.

If you want to speed up the infusion process, you should place the jar of liquid in a sand or steam bath, after which you can start distillation after 12 hours.

At the same time, in order to reduce the pressure of the heated alcohol on the walls of the vessel, the latter must be equipped with a lid with a water seal. However, it should be noted that true connoisseurs of the “green fairy” prefer drinks obtained by ordinary (cold) infusion.

A few words about the distillation of absinthe

1. Do not let the herbs distilled with alcohol burn, otherwise you will completely spoil the taste of absinthe.

2. During distillation, turn off the reflux condenser (aka dry steamer) to keep the maximum amount of essential oils in the liquid.

3. When making absinthe with your own hands according to any recipe, only separate the head during distillation.

   Then continue the process until the liquid begins to drip at intervals of 10 seconds.

   The plant mass remaining in the aggregate, still rich in essential oils, can be used as a seed for the next batch of the drink.

cocktails with absinthe

Relevance: 04.03.2021

Tags: Absinthe, Absinthe recipes