Absinthe

Unlike the other recipes on this site, I did not develop or modify this recipe. I got the recipe from Dale Pendell's Pharmako/Poeia and it is very good and deserve to survive, so I am posting it here.

Ingredients for First Macerate

• 30.0 g wormwood
• 8.5 g hyssop
• 1.8 g calamis
• 6.0 g melissa
• 30.0 g anise seed
• 25.0 g fennel seed
• 10.0 g star anise
• 3.2 g coriander seed

Ingredients for Second Macerate

• 4.2 g mint
• 1.1 g melissa
• 3.0 g wormwood
• 1.0 g citron peel
• 4.2 g liquorice root

Instructions

1. Put dry herbs for the first macerate in a large jar.
2. Add enough water to dampen the herbs slightly.
3. Add 800 ml of 85-95 percent alcohol.
4. Let it steep for a week, shaking daily.
5. Add 600 ml of water and let the whole macerate for another day.
6. Decant off the liquid, squeezing as much from the mass of herb as possible.
7. Wet the herbs with some vodka and squeeze again. There should give a little over a liter and a half of green liquor.
8. Distill the green liquor.
9. In the distillation, change the receiver when the distillate turns yellow (these ar the faints). You can save the faints and add them to future distillations, but they will taint the flavor if added directly to the product.
10. Add the dry herbs for the second macerate.
11. Let the herbs macerate for another three or four days.
12. Decant, filter, bottle.

Makes: about one liter of roughly 135 proof Swiss style absinthe.