The in-flight magazine for EasyJet, a European economy airline, features an amazingly accurate (for print media) article on finding absinthe in Paris. The writer even does a good job with the thumbnail history sketch. The Vert d'Absinthe shop is featured, as is a wonderful sounding bar at the Café Procope, "the oldest café in the world", complete with chandeliers and absinthe fountains:

But today, dinner or a drink at the Procope is a cheerful affair and the place has a fantastic buzz on a Saturday night. It’s colourfully done out in gilt, red, plush, chandeliers, mirrors, pictures and quaint objets d’art—which, of course, include glittering Absinthe “fountains” .

Our only real nits to pick with the article are its claim that modern absinthes are 40% to 50% alcohol (really more like 60%-75%) and quoting Madame Delahaye with the awful canard about absinthe losing its "mystique" if it should become legalized. For our sake, we are willing to take that chance.

David Lebovitz admits to not liking anise flavored drinks(!) (including, of course, absinthe) but loving it as a flavor enhancer for cooking. So being the expert dessert chef he is, he whips up an astoundingly delicious sounding Absinthe Cake recipe. It only uses a 1/4 cup of absinthe, so you won't be draining away too much of the precious emerald drink. And I also never heard of aluminum being in baking powder. Check it out next time you are in the grocery store.

Ernest Dowson was one of the more famouse (or would that be infamous?) writers of the Decadent Movement, along with other fellow absinthe drinkers like Oscar Wilde, Arthur Rimbaud, and Paul Verlaine, all of whom would live fast, die young and leave a good corpse. He didn't actually produce much poetry in his short life, but this particular prose poem is a nice hymn to absinthe:

Absinthea Taetra

Green changed to white, emerald to opal; nothing was changed.

The man let the water trickle gently into his glass, and as the
  green clouded, a mist fell from his mind.

Then he drank opaline.

Memories and terrors beset him. The past tore after him like a
  panther and through the blackness of the present he saw the
  luminous tiger eyes of the things to be.

But he drank opaline.

And that obscure night of the soul, and the valley of humiliation,
  through which he stumbled, were forgotten. He saw blue vistas
  of undiscovered countries, high prospects and a quiet, caressing
  sea. The past shed its perfume over him, to-day held his hand
  as if it were a little child, and tomorrow shone like a white
  star: nothing was changed.

He drank opaline.

The man had known the obscure night of the soul, and lay even
  now in the valley of humiliation; and the tiger menace of the
  things to be was red in the skies. But for a little while he
  had forgotten.

Green changed to white, emerald to opal; nothing was changed.

Paul from Cocktail Chronicles gives a good description of the talk by Ted Breaux, of Jade Liqueurs, at this years Tale of the Cocktail. Complete with pictures, now we really wish we had been able to make it to Tales of the Cocktail ...

I've now personally scored six bottles of absinthe from three different sources and I'm gonna give you the straight dope (and stop writing like I'm working on a script for Starsky and Hutch).

My first absinthe purchase was made in Paris at Vert d'Absinthe, a very nice little shop dedicated to absinthe. I bought a bottle of Jade Liqueurs' Nouvelle-Orléans and a bottle of their Blanchette. When I asked the owner of the shop about taking absinthe back to the U.S. he said that it shouldn't be a problem. He was right! I declared the absinthe on my customs form and even specifically mentioned it to the customs agent. The agent didn't seem at all interested, which I took to indicate that it's not uncommon for them to see absinthe and they aren't concerned with it.

My second purchase was made online via eAbsinthe.com, a bottle of La Fée Parisian 68% and a bottle of La Fée Parisian 45%. (I was curious about the differences in alcohol content.) I was surprised at how easy it was to place the order and pay for it - maybe only a little bit harder than ordering something from Amazon. eAbsinthe ships from the U.K. and so I was expecting to have to wait a while to receive my absinthe, but a nice heavy package arrived 4 or 5 days later. The absinthe bottles were carefully packaged in molded styrofoam and a little bit of butcher paper. I was a little concerned about the bottles breaking during shipping but they definitely know how to pack them.

My third experience was also online and just as easy as the second. I ordered a bottle of Jade's Edouard 72 and a bottle of Verte Suisse 65 (as well as a couple of absinthe reservoir glasses). This time I ordered through Liqueurs de France. They have a very nice site with a lot of good information about what you're buying. It was again very easy to place the order and to pay for it. Again, the order arrived fairly quickly in a very well packed box.

My conclusion is that if you want to get yourself some absinthe it's actually pretty easy. The next question is: Will easy availability remove some of the mystique and desire?

Blogger ex-patriate David Lebovitz writes about his visit to Vert d'Absinthe, the shop where we purchased a couple of bottles of absinthe ourselves. Some nice pictures too.

An interesting Q&A with Ted Breaux, the chemist mastermind behind the Jade Liquors absinthes and someone who is very important in the world of today's absinthe. He was interviewed at Tales of the Cocktail, a conference in New Orleans we here at InAbsinthia surely wish we could be at!