In the absence of real wormwood Absinthe one should know the way of brewing Absinthe at home.
A wine base and herbs including aniseed, hyssop, fennel, lemon balm, star anise, angelica, veronica, juniper, dittany and nutmeg were used by Henri-Louis Pernod for making his Absinthe. Besides using a blend of 13 herbs Czech company Sebor also uses chamomile and mint in addition to wormwood and a 100 year old recipe to make their Absinthe.
There are 3 main ways to make your own Absinthe drink:-
1.One will need a recipe to distill his own Absinthe liquor.
2.Use an Absinthe Kit with a blend of herbs and instructions.
3.Use an Absinthe essence
How to Brew Absinthe Using a Recipe
Distilling liquor at home is illegal in most countries unless you have a license and is quite complicated. Typical home-brew recipes include:-
– Wormwood (Grande Wormwood, Artemisia Absinthium)
– Knowledge of Green Anise
– Fennel
– Alcohol
The ingredients are first macerated for several hours, heated and then slowly distilled and then colored with extra herbs such as lemon balm, hyssop and petite wormwood. It is necessary to re-heat the mixture before filtration and dilution.
Distillation is not necessary for other recipes. This is an example:-
– One will need 30g/ 1 ounce dried Wormwood
– Need of 1 teaspoon of hyssop
– 1 tablespoon angelica is required
– Take a pinch of fennel seeds or anise seeds
– It will require a teaspoon of lemon balm
– There is requirement of ¼ teaspoon each of caraway seeds and coriander seeds
– 1 liter of Everclear or vodka
In a bottle mix chopped dried wormwood with the alcohol and leave for 1-2 weeks in a cool dark place. Mix the sieved wormwood with the other herbs. After 3 or 4 days sieve it again. The Absinthe is ready now.
Brewing Absinthe at home in these ways is not recommended. Distilling is an illegal process and simply mixing the herbs with alcohol does not give a real Absinthe.
How To Brew Absinthe with a Herbal Blend Kit
There are many different herbal kits on sale online, for example the kits from Green Devil. Things that are in their kits:-
– Their unique micron filtration system.
– An Absinthe blend is required which includes grande wormwood, hyssop, calamus, melissa, anise seed, fennel seed, star anise and coriander.
– Absinthe flavoring and finishing blend which contains more herbal ingredients.
Their Deluxe kit also contains two Absinthe spoons, two Absinthe glasses, a 1000ml bottle, two bottle labels, two muslin bags for infusing the herbs, a poster and a pamphlet containing information and instructions.
They claim that their finished Absinthe will contain as much as 70-90mg of thujone per liter which is the chemical found in wormwood and was believed to cause psychedelic effects. There is no distilling involved so the Absinthe produced will not be a true Absinthe.
How To Brew Absinthe With an Essence
Absinthe essences are available to buy from AbsintheKit.A person can make real Absinthe at home by going through the site AbsintheKit.com. The essences are prepared from traditional Absinthe herbs. Mix the essence with Everclear or vodka to have your own bottled Absinthe.
4 types of essence are available – one to make a classic verte Absinthe, one to make a clear La Bleue style Absinthe, one to make an orange flavored Absinthe and another to make a stronger more bitter Absinthe. One can find real wormwood in all of them and essences are used by the Absinthe industry.
AbsintheKit.A person can also buy an Absinthe kit which is available with essence to make 14 bottles of Absinthe, bottle labels and a plastic measure. See their website to get more information on how to brew Absinthe with their essences.