Types of Absinthe

Not a lot of people even understand what absinthe is.  So of course, even fewer understand the different styles.  For the purpose of this post, I'm going to go over four styles of absinthe: French, Swiss, Czech, and "fake."

French style absinthe is the green absinthe, or absinthe verte, that most people think of when they think of absinthe.  In addition to the wormwood and anise, these absinthes are flavored with a variety of other botanicals.  After being distilled, they also are macerated again with herbs and botanicals, which gives the bottled spirit a green color, and causes the louched product to also be a cloudy green color.  Their flavor, while having a heavy licorice flavor from the anise, and also quite bitter from the wormwood, is more complex and balanced due to the heavy presence of other botanicals.

Swiss style absinthe is the clear (in the bottle) absinthe which louches a cloudy blueish white color.  These tend to be produced with a mix of botanicals that is heavier on the wormwood and anise, rather than the variety of other botanicals.  They also are not re-macerated, which is why they remain clear, rather than being bottled green.  The lack of the coloring stage also means that the flavors tend to be cleaner, and more focused on licorice and bitterness.

Czech or Bohemian style absinthe is really more like a wormwood bitters than anything else.  There is no anise or other botanicals, it is just a high proof spirit flavored with wormwood.  It is very bitter, which might explain why in the 1990s "Czech style" absinthe service, where the sugar cube is soaked in absinthe and lit on fire, was created, to caramelize the sugar, burn off some of the alcohol, and dilute the absinthe at the same time.

"Fake" absinthes are absinthes without wormwood.  I hesitate to call them fake, because some of them are still great products, but they are not true absinthes.  This category includes all brands of Pastis, Absente, Herbsaint, and others.  They are often a lower alcohol percentage than true absinthes as well.  These were mostly created in France, as well as New Orleans (Herbsaint) during the 100ish years when true absinthe was only legal in Spain, Holland, the Czech Republic, and Australia. By the time that absinthe was banned, it was an integral part of several cocktails, so people created this type of spirit in order to contribute the same flavor profile and coloring/clouding effects to a cocktail, without breaking the law.

What is rhum?

Wow, first post of the New Year, and in months!  I need to post more often.

I thought I'd take a minute to go over one of the most confusing classifications of spirits, and use a spelling difference to do so.

People see "rhum" on a menu, and often wonder if it is a typo, something entirely different, or just a different way of spelling rum.

Well, rum is one of the most difficult spirit categories to categorize, as its traditional origins (the Caribbean) is made up of so many countries.  Which means, unlike other spirits, there has been very little in the way of central regulation and definition when it comes to rums.

Another effect of the Caribbean origins of rum is that it is made in countries which speak different languages, due to the diverse colonial histories in the Caribbean.  So, unlike defining a term like "Scotch" or "Bourbon" or "cognac," what follows are general guidelines, and not necessarily hard and fast laws or rules which always prove true.

That being said, rum can generally be split into three categories, based on the language of the island where it is made.  Those categories are English, Spanish, and French.

For our purposes today, we will focus on French rum, or Rhum.  In general, French rums are made in the agricole style.  What that means is that while English and Spanish style rums are generally "industrial" style rum, made with molasses (a byproduct of the sugar refining process), French agricole rhums are made with raw sugar cane.

The biggest effect of making rhums with raw sugar cane is that there is a unique flavor which raw sugar cane lends to the finished product.  Many describe this as earthy, grassy, or funky.  It also lends a certain bitter bite, especially to the finish, despite the rhum still being pretty sweet.  To me, the funky, bitter bite is very similar to that found in tequila or white whiskey.

Hopefully this helps clarify what "rhum" is.

Liqueurs, brandies, cordials, and "other spirits"

Basically, spirits are organized into 8 "families," or types of spirits.  Those are, in no particular order: vodka, gin, rum, tequila, whiskey, brandy, liqueurs, and "other spirits."

When someone mentions one of the first five, a pretty good idea probably comes to mind as to exactly what they mean, but the last three get confusing for most people.  Add to that the fact that you often see things sold as "cordials" and it can get really weird.  This post is an attempt to demystify some of these classifications.

Brandy is the easiest and narrowest to define of these categories.  It is a spirit distilled from a wine, which in turn is an alcoholic beverage fermented from fruit.  This is what separates it from the other categories.  Within brandy, there are three basic types: grape brandy (often called just brandy), fruit brandy, and pomace brandy.

Grape brandy is brandy made from grapes.  In other words, it is basically distilled table wine.  It is usually barrel aged (more on this later).  This is what Cognac and Armagnac are known for.  If a bottle is labeled just "brandy" it is most likely made from grapes.  Although this is changing, especially with U.S. craft distillers, I misled a little bit when I called it distilled table wine.  The base wine is usually, although, not always, made from different grapes than the wine we are used to drinking.  The ideal wine is high in acid, moderate in sugar, and low in alcohol, which, while making it rather unpleasant to drink on its own, allows it to hold up to both distillation and extensive aging.  In fact, brandy is the one drink which it is believed does not hit a "peak" of ideal age, after which it starts to decline.  Some fine brandy is aged many decades, and it is believed that the best brandies in the world only continue to get better in the barrel.

Pomace brandy is also made from grapes, but not from the juice or wine.  This brandy is made from the pips, skins, stems, etc. left over after wine grapes are pressed.  It is usually served unaged.  Pomace brandy, marc, and grappa are all examples of this category.

Fruit brandy is brandy made from fruit other than grapes.  Apple brandy is a common one, followed by pear, cherry, and peach.  Many Eastern European countries also drink plum brandy.  This can be served aged, or unaged.  Unaged brandy, whether from grapes or other fruit, are known as eaux-de-vie (water of life), and are clear.  Aged brandies are darker in color.  Calvados and applejack are common apple brandies.  Kriek, poire, and framboise are common ways to label cherry, pear, and raspberry brandies, respectively.  A brandy made from fruit other than grapes will almost always be labeled including the fruit.  That is, it will be labeled as a "Raspberry Brandy," rather than "Brandy."

Liqueurs are often confused with brandies, especially fruit liqueurs and fruit brandies.  The key distinction here is that fruit brandies are distilled from that fruit.  Liqueurs, on the other hand, can have any base spirit, but are flavored, and have a sugar content between 2.5% and 30%.  Examples are triple sec, Drambuie, Benedictine, curacao, Grand Marnier, schnapps, crème de menthe, crème de cacao, etc.
Proprietary liqueurs are liqueurs which refer to a specific brand name, i.e. Grand Marnier, Bailey's, Kahlua, while generic liqueurs are generally accepted flavors of liqueur which may be available in multiple brands, i.e. curacao, crème de menthe, crème de banana, etc.
An interesting liqueur to consider is Grand Marnier.  Many people think Grand Marnier is an orange brandy, rather than an orange liqueur.  This is where it is tricky.  Grand Marnier has a brandy base. The orange flavor and sugar, however, are added into the brandy (which has a grape base).  This makes Grand Marnier a brandy based orange liqueur.  In order to be an orange brandy, Grand Marnier would need to be distilled from oranges.

Cordials are a category with different meanings in different parts of the world.  In the U.S., they are synonymous with liqueurs.  The EU, however, recently changed their definition to mean a non-alcoholic ingredient.  So beware, if shopping in Europe, your cordials will not have alcohol!

Other Spirits are not really one of the major families of spirits, and that's kind of the point.  They were fairly unimportant until recently.  With the resurgence of spirit forward cocktails and bitter cocktails, and with the re-legalization of absinthe, they are gaining in popularity.  There are basically three major categories (in my objective opinion) to consider here: bitters, absinthe, and unsweetened liqueurs.

Bitters include two groups of spirits.  One I call mixing bitters and one I call drinking bitters, although in reality, both are primarily used as ingredients in cocktails.  Mixing bitters are usually sold as bitters and come in small bottles to be used by the drop or dash in cocktails.  They include Angostura, Peychauds, orange bitters, etc.  People often forget that these are spirits, as they are alcoholic (usually very high alcohol content, in fact).  Drinking bitters usually come in full sized bottles, and, although it is not very popular, can be consumed on their own, or used as the base in a cocktail.  These include Campari, Lillet, Fernet, etc.  These are on the rise in current cocktail culture.

Absinthe I discuss in more detail here.

Unsweetened liqueurs are essentially flavored spirits which either are not sweetened at all, or are not sweetened enough to be considered a liqueur.  Although frequently sold with, and considered liqueurs, they are not technically a liqueur.  These are also gaining in popularity, as craft distilleries become more popular, and overly sweet cocktail go out of fashion in favor of more spirit forward drinks.

Questions?  Have a favorite brandy or liqueur?  Let me know in the comments!

Tasting Notes: Ron Abuelo 12 Year

This is a 12 year aged Panamanian dark rum, which is surprisingly not terribly expensive for how great or old it is.  Keep in mind that aging in the Caribbean, the angel's share can be up to 10-20% annually.  So in addition to the time, rum tends to be expensive to age because you lose a lot of the original product!

Appearance:  Dark but translucent caramel brown.

Aroma:  Melting brown sugar, very mild alcohol aroma.

Mouthfeel:  Feels light, but does linger a little bit.

Flavors:  Brown sugar, caramel, but not overly sweet or syruppy, a little vanilla and a slight oakiness, warm finish.

Overall:  I am not a rum drinker.  And when I do, it's usually with cola, or poolside in a Miami Vice in Vegas or Mexico.  This rum is the exception.  It is sweet enough, but not overly sweet.  It manages to pull some of the heavier flavors that give burning caramel or melting brown sugar their flavors and smells and set them apart from white sugar, without becoming too sugary.  The oak and vanilla are there enough to give a little more complexity to what I usually think of as a fairly simple sugar and booze bomb of a spirit, but not so much as to muddle the sugar-based flavors.  Overall, this rum has a great balance, and a lot more going on than most other non-spiced rums.  It also warms you up quite a bit for a spirit which comes in at 40 proof.  This is a nice drink for a cool or cold day, by itself, neat or on the rocks, something I would rarely say about a rum.

Should I age xx, or drink it right away?

People often wonder they can or even should age a particular bottle, whether it is beer, wine, or spirits.  The answer is, it all depends on the particular item.

Spirits.  In general, spirits are high enough in alcohol content that the effects of aging them in a bottle will be minimal.  They are  not as volatile, or subject to as much chemical change as lower proof beer and wine.  Most have been aged in wood, or filtered, to the point that most cogeners have fully developed.  It's still not a great idea to keep them around too long, especially once they're opened, but they are less subject to change over time than beer and wine.

Beer.  As a general rule, beer is best drank fresh.  Beer is low proof, and has not been distilled, or (generally) aged.  The higher residual sugar and water, along with other chemicals which are still left in beer, make it fairly volatile.  Light and oxygen are both bad for beer.  Saying heat is bad for beer is a bit of an oversimplification.  Temperature changes are bad for beer.  So if you do plan on hanging on to beer (whether just for a couple of weeks or during long term cellaring/aging) keep this in mind.  A beer cellar or closet is probably the best place for it, as it will be protected from light and stay relatively temperature stable.  The most common way I've seen people mistreat beer is to buy it cold, let it sit out for a few days, put it in the fridge, then move or take it somewhere else, or just run out of space in the fridge, leave it out at room temperature for a few days, and then put it back in the fridge.  This is asking for trouble.

Now, notice that I said that as a general rule beer is best when fresh.  Some beers are meant to stand up to aging.  How do you know if yours is one of them?  Five things: hops, alcohol, body, aging, and a couple of yeast situations.

Hops will be the most counterintuitive of these.  Hoppy, bitter beers do not age well and are best consumed as quickly as possible, especially fresh hopped or dry hopped beers.  Weren't hops originally put in beer as a preservative, though, you ask?  Yes, they were.  In fact, hoppy beers are certainly safe to drink after some time.  But 1) modern brewing and packaging ensures that even beers with low hop profiles are pretty shelf stable, and 2) what we now call "hoppy" beers use hops for flavor and aroma.  As an agricultural product, and, basically an aromatic flower, hops change as they get old.  They no longer have the fresh, bright, crisp flavor and aroma they started with, meaning that while they're perfectly safe to consume, they lose the characteristics that they gave the beer and begin to taste and smell stale.

Alcohol Higher alcohol beers tend (although hops trump this, so don't try to age an Imperial IPA!) to age better than lower alcohol beers, for a couple of reasons.  Aging will tend to mellow and round out the boozy flavors that some barley wines/quads/etc. will have.  Also, as mentioned in the notes on spirits, higher alcohol means less volatile (at least in terms of flavor and aroma changes).  These beers will develop and change with  time, especially since most high alcohol beers also have a fair amount of residual sugar and fruity esters left in them, unlike spirits, but will not entirely change their nature.  They area also high enough in alcohol that most yeast and bacteria will not attempt to continue fermenting the beer.

Body Bigger bodied beers tend to age better.  Whether from alcohol, sugar, or dark roasted malts, big beers mean big flavors.  You don't want to lose that (and won't), but sometimes a mellowing, rounding out that comes with aging does a big beer good.

Aging If a beer has been aged by the brewery in wood, it usually means two things: 1) the recipe was designed with aging in mind, so there won't be any harmful effects to letting it sit a little longer in the bottle, 2) The aging process has already started, and so the effects of aging will not take a turn for the worst.  Any negative chemical or bacterial reactions would have taken place in the barrel, and you wouldn't have the beer at all.  So, it's a safe bet that most barrel aged beers will be good after a little extra time in the bottle or keg as well.

Yeast In general, spontaneously fermented and bottle/barrel conditioned beers are good to age.  Spontaneous fermentation allows a) oxidation, and b) wild and unpredictable yeast activity.  These are two things you worry about with aging a beer, and if it has already held up to deliberate exposure to these two things, chances are, they can't do a lot more harm.  The stuff that wild yeast and bacteria eat is probably already gone.  As for bottle/barrel conditioned beers, they are deliberately bottled or kegged with active yeast so that the beer continues developing.  Allowing the yeast to remain active will allow the beer to continue to develop over time (until the yeast has completely died off) and provide for a more interesting brew.

Lucky for us, several of these conditions tend to overlap.  IPAs and pales tend to be light, crisp, young, hoppy, and very deliberately fermented using cultured yeasts.  Barley wines, imperial stouts, quads, sours, etc. tend to meet more than one of the conditions I've listed for "good for aging" beers, and are usually good candidates

Wine
Rules for wine are actually not that far off from beer, but a little more simplified.  First of all, remember to keep them temperature stable and out of the way of light.  Second, I don't think there's anything in wine that has quite the same negative reaction to time that hops do, so you won't necesarily totally ruin a wine by aging it.

In general, you'll want to drink light bodied wines, especially crisp, bright, citrusy ones, pretty young.  They will tend to mellow, smooth, and become more one note over time.

On the other hand, big wines with richer, dark fruit flavors, especially ones high in tannin, will usually benefit from aging.  As with beer, anything (white or red) which saw the inside of an oak barrel is probably a good candidate for further aging as well.

Collecting/future value
Now, the one thing to note with all three of these things, especially with whiskey and wine, and it's starting to be true of some beers as well, is that aside from quality, there is a certain value to a bottle held onto for a while.  Simple supply and demand.  A 25 year old scotch or bourbon is going to be hard to find, and, to the right person, worth a lot of money.  An interesting note about wine production is that low yields often produce the best wine.  A bottle of a particularly scarce, but high quality vintage can be worth a lot of money.  Some craft and monastic beers are so hard to find that they are worth a lot of money, especially months or years after their production.  The above tips were written based on drinkability and quality, not on monetary value.  So if you are a collector primarily looking to make money, or  simply have the pride in having a valuable cellar, you can probably pay less attention to them.  That said, 1) collecting booze for the sake of future value is risky.  You are banking on the fact that a particular brand or vintage will hold value in the future.  Tastes change.  While a rare spirit, wine, or beer is probably a safe bet, keep in mind that producers change production levels, or sometimes tastes just change.  2) If it tastes like shit, it's really not worth anything to anyone.  Pliny the Younger is a very rare, triple IPA from Russian River, released once a year.  This gives it an inherent value, and might tempt some profiteers (if it was available in bottle) to tuck away a bottle and try to sell it in the off season.  They'd be out of luck, as this beer is meant to be drank young and would only deteriorate with time.  In fact, the brewery allocates kegs only to those bars who commit to tapping it in the month of February, to avoid people jeopardizing the quality of the product to take advantage of its scarcity.

Hopefully this has been a helpful guide to when products might benefit (or not) from cellaring or aging them in bottle.

Styles of Gin

Gin is one of the groups of spirits with the most variation within styles.  While two well vodkas, or two well rums are likely to have a similar taste, as are two top shelf vodkas or two top shelf rums, every gin is distinct.  The legal definition of gin (in the United States) is simply "an alcoholic beverage of no less than 40% ABV that possesses the characteristic flavour of juniper berries."

This clearly leaves some room open for interpretation, as is clear from the range of products on the market.  There are a few major categories which, although flavors vary even within the categories, can help tell a little bit about the gin.  I am going to list them in the order I think most American drinkers are likely to encounter them in.

London Dry gin is the most common type of gin.  It is dry, focuses primarily on the juniper flavors, and is generally fairly crisp and clean.  Tanqueray, Bombay, Boodles, Beefeaters, Seagram's, etc. all fall within this category.

New American gin is basically any gin which fits within the legal definition of gin, but not necessarily within any of the other styles.  Generally speaking, although not always, they tend to put more of an emphasis on citrus, floral, or herbal flavors, than London dry.  Hendrick's is probably the best known new style gin.

Sloe Gin is not really gin (any more).  It is a liqueur which uses a gin base, blackthorn berries (also known as sloe berries) for flavor, and is oak aged.

Genever (several different spellings exist) is starting to make a come back, but is actually the original style of gin.  It is attributed to the dutch.  This is a style which can be made from malt wine or a mixture of malt wine and sugar cane derived spirits, which are the redistilled with juniper and other gin flavorings, and are sometimes aged.  The key difference is that the grain (in oude genever) or other (in jong genever) spirits, as well as the aging when that takes place, are expected to actually contribute to the final gin flavor.  Where other styles focus on a crisp, clean spirit that highlights the clean flavors of gin, genever has more of a rough, grain spirit flavor.  Bols Genever and Genevier are the best known examples.

Old Tom gin is a sweeter style than London dry.  It actually predates London dry, as during early days of gin distillation, the alcohol and distillation flavors were so strong and offensive, that sweeter flavorings were needed to make gin palatable.  It is the gin originally used in a Tom Collins.  There are not a lot of well known brands of Old Tom gin, but the names for brands within this category usually include "Old Tom" or "Old English" right in the name.

Plymouth Gin is similar to London dry, but more earthy in flavor.  It must be produced in Plymouth, England, and as of right now, there is only one brand of true Plymouth Gin, coincidentally called Plymouth Gin on the market.

Absinthe? Is it legal? Is it safe? Will it make me crazy?

Absinthe is one of the most misunderstood and mysterious spirits on the market.  Its history is full of road bumps, prohibitions, and myths that make it that much more confusing, and appealing.  So, here's a list of the common questions people ask about absinthe.

What is Absinthe?
Absinthe is a spirit with grand wormwood, green anise, and fennel flavoring.  Unlike most other spirits, it is not overly regulated or protected by laws, meaning distillers can make any number of products, and legally call them absinthe.  It also does not fall into any of the seven major "families" of spirits (vodka, rum, gin, tequila, whiskey, liqueur, or brandy), since it does not meet requirements for any of them, and unlike liqueurs (which can similarly contain just about anything) is not bottled with any artificial or added sweetness.  So absinthe can have a fruit (usually white grape, and typical of the most traditional high-end absinthes) or grain base.  It can be redistilled to instill flavors and colors, or can have them added through essential oils or compounds (cold compounding).  They can be clear, or any number of shades of green.

That being said, absinthe is usually a fairly high proof (90-148 proof) spirit which tastes like a very herbal version of licorice and contains wormwood or wormwood oil.

Is absinthe legal?
In most parts of the world, at present time, yes.  In some countries (Spain , Portugal, the UK, and others), absinthe has always been legal.  In most other Western countries, absinthe was banned some time between 1906 and 1915.  Most of those bans have been lifted between 2000 and 2011, due to conflicts with EU regulations, with other national food or beverage laws, or just a general cultural shift.

Is the absinthe that's now legal in the U.S. real?
Yes.  The largest confusion in this is that there was a product, pre-2007, which was called "Absente," which contained no wormwood oils, and was artificially sweetened, but was similar in flavor profile to absinthe.  This product was nothing like the "real" absinthe available at the time in parts of Europe.  In 2007, the FDA redefined a part of the food codes to declare anything with under 10mg/kg of thujone could be called "thujone free," and thus could be legally produced, imported, and sold in the United States.  This limit is lower than in some European countries, so our absinthe may have less wormwood and thujone in it than some European brands, but it does contain all the same ingredients.

What is thujone?  Is it really a hallucinogen?
Thujone is the chemical found in wormwood which is in the same family as THC (the chemical in pot which gives it its psychoactive properties).  Although both critics and artistic fans of absinthe claimed that this chemical gave it dangerous hallucinogenic properties, this has been scientifically disproved.  Thujone, and thus absinthe, will not make you hallucinate.  Nor will they trigger the same receptors that THc will in the brain.  That being said, it is not conclusively proven one way or the other whether thujone has psychoactive properties independent of alcohol.  Toxicity studies have shown both psychological and physiological effects of thujone, but only in concentrations nearly impossible to reach by drinking absinthe, especially since the high proof would lead to experiencing serious alcohol issues long before the threshold for these effects of thujone were felt.

That being said, in my personal experience, abisnthe gives a different type of buzz.  It is much more mellow, and clear-headed than the buzz I get off of drinking other spirits.  It is a little thought provoking, or some might even say "mind opening."  Then again, I've experienced a different type of "whiskey buzz" than "vodka buzz," and different types of buzz based on where I am and who I'm with, so we'll leave it for the scientists to figure out if the "absinthe buzz" is caused by thujone, one of the many other botanicals used in absinthe production, or just the experience of the whole absinthe ordeal.

Got questions?  Comments?  Suggestions for future posts?  Post them in the comments, or send them to livingbuzzed@gmail.com or @livingbuzzed on Twitter!