Green Fairy at Home: Simple Absinthe Cocktails

Since my bro and I are up in NorCal staying with our parents, we are bored out of our minds. So I thought an interesting way to pass the time would be to get loaded off absinthe since I haven’t had a chance yet to explore the bars in our area, and staying in and playing drunken Wii bowling sounds more fun (and safer) than a night at the local Pine Cove Tavern anyway.

Thanks to an awesome LAist post detailing the different brands of absinthe available at BevMo, all bottles of the stuff are sold out at the WeHo BevMo. But not so at the Elk Grove location! Woo!

So I picked up a bottle of Kubler’s Swiss Absinthe Superiere ($53.99) and something called La Verte Muse Pastis ($32.99) for good measure (although we later discovered this isn’t absinthe). Problem is, having never drank the stuff and researching it online, I found out that it tastes like licorice. Blech! I hate licorice, well, black licorice.

So I needed to find a cocktail recipe to mask that flavor somewhat since drinking a straight shot or the classic drip way was out of the question. However, since my dad’s bar doesn’t contain stuff like Angostura bitters, Chartreuse, grenadine or mixers for that matter, it had to be a simple recipe. And I didn’t want anything overly sweet like those cocktails containing Baileys or anything with vodka or Red Bull.

Fortunately I was able to find the following cocktail recipes. Perfect for those who only have their parents’ limited bar selection to work with this holiday or those too lazy to do yet another run to BevMo.

Recipes after the jump.

Bloody Fairy

• 1 oz Absinthe
• 2 dashes cranberry juice
• 4 – 5 oz tonic water

Pour 1 shot of absinthe over ice. Add cranberry juice to taste (about 2 dashes) and top off with tonic water.

Desire

• 1/4 absinthe
• 1/2 tablespoon sugar
• 3/4 lemon juice

Shake well and pour into cocktail glass.

Earthquake Cocktail

• 1 oz. gin
• 1 oz. bourbon
• 3/4 oz. absinthe

Shake with ice and strain into a Collins glass.

Green Death Crystal

• 1 shot absinthe
• 1 shot white rum
• lemonade
• ice crushed

In a long glass mix the absinthe and the light rum, add the ice and then the lemonade.

London Fog

• 1 1/2 oz. gin
• 1/4 oz. absinthe

Frappe in a highball glass.

Traffic Light

• 2 parts of cranberry juice
• 1 part of orange juice
• 1 part of absinthe

Pour carefully into a cocktail glass half filled with ice.

In the end I tried my own version of the Atom Bomb:

Pour a jigger of absinthe in a cordial glass. Take a teaspoon of sugar and dip it in the absinthe. Set it aflame with a match and let the sugar caramelize. Pour some ice water on the flaming spoon while it’s positioned over the glass of absinthe and then stir into the liquid. Pour a jigger of Hennessey into glass and drop an ice cube in it.

OK, the original recipe doesn’t call for the sugar and pyrotechnics but I’ve always wanted to do that. And my brother thought the cocktail too sweet so you may want to use half a teaspoon of sugar instead.

The cocktail is still potent stuff even with the water and the ice cube, and ended up kicking our asses. No green fairies or even pink elephants for that matter though. My bro simply passed out on the floor after two of these. But he’s a lightweight. I had two also but felt very light-headed, a different sensation from when I’m just plain drunk. I blame it on the 106 proof liquor.

There was no drunken Wii bowling after.