The Absinthe Underground

There are worse ways to spend a weekday evening than having a pseudonymous 47-year-old ex-goth feeding you illegal substances. My host on this balmy July night is "Hiram," who maintains the Wormwood Society, a loose, invitation-only conglomeration of Seattle absinthe enthusiasts. The taboo alcoholic beverage of 19th-century painters, poets, and musicians, still outlawed in this country, has a small and devoted following, especially locally, and few are more fervent than Hiram, who is letting me sample his wares.

In the kitchen of his neatly kept Fremont apartment sit two doves in a cage near the window, cooing loudly in the background. At the center of the dining table is a large glass water dispenser, framed about halfway down by four small brass spigots, into which Hiram empties a large bag of ice, then fills it from a gallon jug of water. Nearby are several shot glasses, a couple of drinking glasses, some slotted spoons, a small tray of oblong sugar cubes, and several bottles of greenish-yellow, yellowish-green, and in one case, orangey-red liquid with odd labels that seem as handcrafted as the stuff in them. This is the absinthe that we will be sampling, and the accoutrements that will smooth the ride.

As Hiram pours a spoonful of the François Guy brand into a shot glass, I dip a pinky in and bring it to my mouth. Instantly, my tongue and upper lip feel as if smoke is seeping through them. Some ice water and sugar enter the shot glass; after a slow stir, I take my first drink. Not bad—the aniseed that flavors the absinthe gives it a taste akin to a stern licorice, but not very bitter at all, as I'd anticipated. And though it's clearly alcoholic, there's less of a pure rotgut kick than I'd expected, given absinthe's reputation as the most demonic of all alcoholic beverages—a reputation that led to the stuff being banned in the United States in 1912, three years before France declared it illegal.

After another shot of a second flavor, Verte de Fougerolles, Hiram prepares a full glass. "A lot of my absinthe friends make fun of me for liking this stuff," he says, "but it's my favorite." The third sample is Blanche de Fougerolles, and it's the first he prepares with the full-on treatment: sugar cube over slotted spoon atop glass, the water melting the sugar one drop at a time. Watching this is mesmerizing—and as the first two shots work their way through my system, it gets more mesmerizing by the drop. The drink takes five minutes to prepare, and one sip later I know why it's Hiram's favorite: It goes down not like alcohol, in fits and gulps, but like water with hints of licorice. I swallow the entire drink in four gulps. And that's when my head gets as cloudy as the liquid.

The absinthe ritual is a key part of its appeal. "It focuses you and puts you in a particular headspace," says Barbara Mitchell, a local music publicist who imbibes. "The experience is as much in the ritual and preparation of it. That's something missing in everyday life."

So, for the most part, is the substance itself. But it gets around. Hiram traces much of its newfound popularity to the 1992 movie Bram Stoker's Dracula and the video for Nine Inch Nails' 1996 single, "The Perfect Drug," both of which made absinthe a goth-scene fixture. More recently—and, according to absinthe purists, more damaging—was 2001's Moulin Rouge, which included a sensational absinthe scene featuring copious flamework. According to Hiram, burning a sugar cube before adding it to a glass of absinthe is not only inauthentic, it ruins the drink's taste. Still, he reasons, "How exciting is it to put absinthe in a movie if you can't set it on fire? Because fire's cool."

Like marijuana, absinthe is something more people in the Seattle arts community seem to have tried than not. The difference is that pot is essentially mainstream now; absinthe still has underground cachet. And that forbidden-fruit aspect has plenty of allure in an ever-more-permissive society.

This isn't to say absinthe is completely forbidden. For one thing, despite rumors to the contrary, absinthe was never banned in Spain or England, which is one reason it underwent a bump in popularity in London during the mid-'90s, as reported in British style magazines like Dazed and Confused. For another, Seattleites can, and frequently do, travel over the border, to Vancouver, B.C., to acquire it.

Long-standing fans of the stuff don't recommend this, though. "The stuff they sell in Canada is called Hill's, and it's crap," says Seattle Weekly Information Systems Director Andrew McCarty, who became interested in absinthe four years ago. "They've added some wormwood back into it, but for the most part it's not worth touching."

"The folks that don't know the quality stuff know [absinthe] by reputation," says Hiram. "They go up to Vancouver, pick up a bottle of Hill's—these are the guys that are knocking back shots of Jägermeister and peppermint schnapps all night. It's a drinking sport.