Absinthe is one of the most famous and controversial spirits in the history. Firstly used in the Ancient Greece for medicinal methods. The first written recipe arrived at 1792 when the Swiss doctor Pierre Ordinaire promoted its qualities. Later the Frenchmen showed it to the world.
Macerated and distilled beverage of aromatic plants -concretely wormwood and licorice- found its maximum splendour thanks to the artists of the final 19th century and the beginnings of the 20th .Wilde, Van Gogh, Baudelaire, Manet, Picasso, Degas, Hemingway... found with this liquor the inspiration for their masterpieces. There are a lot of artistic references to absinthe: Manet painted The absinthe drinker (1901); Degas, The absinthe (1876); Picasso, Woman drinking absinthe (1901) and Glass of absinthe (1911)...
This inspiration is given by wormwood, or better said by thujone, an element that causes a sensation of absolut pleasure and will be the originator of its ban a few years later; first in Switzerland, then in France, United Kingdom and almost all the countries where it was consumed.
It is popularly known the story that absinthe gave Hemingway enough courage to bullfight in Spain and helped Van Gogh cutting his ear.
The passage of time -more than half a century- and its increasing demand,make the governments begin to raise the prohibitions, but of course, fixing the maximum level of thujone which cannot cause hallucinations.
BODEGAS Y DESTILERÍAS LEHMANN S.A.
elabore its absinthes at 55% and 70% from the old recipes that as much Joan Curto as his son, Ismael, created in the origin of our family distillerie in 1870. With the wormwood maceration and licorice destillation -the only ingredients of absinthe, although many firms include star anise- we obtain a very equilibrate spirit, elegant to the palate.
Like almost all beverages, it could be combined in many exotic cocktails; here you are our suggestion:
HEMINGWAY'S DREAM
1 oz of absinta Lehmann 55º or 70º
1 oz of squeezed lemon juice
1 cube of demerara sugar
a palm of fresh mint
