Message from Arnaud Van De Casteele

Cafe Slavia, Prague

Here is a message from Arnaud Van De Casteele – please post suggestions and advice in the comments below.

Hello everybody !

My name is Arnaud , I’m French and I excuse for my English ! I am in doctorate in Sociology Anthropology and prepares a thesis on the Absinth. You can see my site : www.absinthology.org . That made from now on more than 5 years that I am interested truly in the Absinth in all his forms and with all his actors. I was born into France country not far from Pontarlier and since my tender childhood I always intended to speak about the green fairy. As, more as all I am impassioned subject and people who live her Absinth’ world. For my anthropological work, I have an ethnological step of ground, i.e. which I travel to the meeting of anybody who want to speak to me well about the Absinth according to their point of view. I will be very honoured with being able from now on to meet more and to discuss with people coming from the United States or other countries and I thought that you could have helped me while speaking about my research. Thus horticulturists, producers legal and clandestin, alcohol salesmen, restorers, professionals of tourism, scientists biochemists, and biensur… of the Absinth Drinkers ! I began my ground in the area of the east of France and in Switzerland, visiting Paris and opening my ground maintaining in Europe: Spain, Portugal, England, Italy, Germany.

I will be in Roumania ( 5 at 12 october) in Barsana to make a communication in a anthropologic conference of “Food and Rituals”. I currently prepare one “Ethnologicalroad absinth” connecting Prague in Bucharest, while passing by Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, Barsana and Cluj. I need some addresses of bars places, distillings, and autochtone’s contacts. I am opened with all practical information and assistances to organize my way as well as possible. Also if you have information on the various visited countries, do not hesitate with me to forward them. So, If you knows some people in this city, absinth’s drinkers or not, Absinth drink and distillery, you can perhaps give me her email. If you gan give me some help, you welcome!

Many Thanks

Arnaud
Ethnologue Absintheur

Absinthe Muse in Summer

Summertime is Reality time – this stunning Czech absinth is just perfect on the rocks – watch it melt to a cool lime white louche, and then enjoy the herbal intensity of this 100% natural Czech product.

Remember Muse in an Absinthe Tank and the Reality Absinth Poster? The Bairnsfather Absinth poster girl is back by popular demand – and this time in cool summer apparel.

Stunning! rather like Reality Absinth, with it’s 35mg thujone content, expertly filtered from the finest wormwood. Anyone care to guess what the plant in picture two is? Want to taste some in all it’s pure glory? You need to know where to look! As the saying goes it’s “as rare as hen’s teeth“, with the production being bought up as fast as the hand finished bottles leave the family distillery.

Bairnsfather Reality is currently available in very few places in Prague (write to me and I’ll tell you where) and only via a few selected absinthe webshops. Prague wine bars are starting to serve burcak, and that means autumn is coming! Will there be an Absinthe Muse in Autumn? I hope so 🙂

 

 

Muse in an absinthe tank

Here’s the Bairnsfather poster girl – the absinthe muse – inspecting one of the new tanks at the Bairnsfather family distillery.

Kyle Bairnsfather, who is an enthusiastic renovator of pinball machines, recently took delivery of a new generation of distillery equipment. Ever the perfectionist, this week Mr Bairnsfather took apart all of the new machinery, cleaned every screw, and assembled them back together so that he could get to know the machines better!

What makes Bairnsfather Absinth different?

This is a good question, and one that has been noted by other absinthe enthusiasts, most recently in Leif Rogers’ My Love Affair with Reality. It is not just that this absinth is a natural handmade product, there is modern technology in partnership with tradition.

The key is the filtration technology that the Bairnsfather line uses together with a proprietary freezing process. This allows the tones of his traditional mountain herbs to shine through, like a hazy sumner afternoon in the Lusatian mountains, the ancient mountain range that is home to the old Sebor distillery which Kyle now runs.

Bairnsfather absinth is sadly not widely available. Major ecommerce outlets do stock the range alongside the other Czech brands (some of which bear no comparison to this hand-crafted artisanal absinthe).

The current production is usually all sold before it is even born. One customer from Poland recently drove 100 miles to get her hands on a bottle!

As the weather in Prague is currently chokingly hot, a glass of iced Reality is a refreshing reminder of the mountains and the stunning virgin forests. These forests and meadows, especially around the German border, are untouched and offer a great spot for a relaxing escape far away from the crowds and bustle of the city.

How to drink Bairnsfather absinth? In my opinion it is best with ice, this produces a profound louche – especially in the anise rich Absinth Bitter. Na zdravi!

Absinth : Good news for real absinth drinkers

Good news from the original Sebor distillery! Kyle Bairnsfather who sells 100% of his production – making his hand crafted Czech specialty a real rarity – is expanding. Due to increased demand – not least from the domestic Czech and Slovak markets – Kyle is busy expanding his production facilities. Bairnsfather products use the very latest modern filtration technology, along with the superb traditional regional mountain herbs, to produce Reality Absinth, as well as the anise rich Absinth Bitter range. The thujone levels in the latter range from 32-34 mg and hence, according to European Union regulations, are rated at the very top of the thujone scale as Hořká lihovina.

Modern Absinth Drinkers

Firey absinth fun – Czech style 🙂

Czech Absinth Sculpture

Bedřich Stefan: Girl with Absinth, 1924

Absinth Returns

 

The modern day renaissance in asbinthe drinking in fact started in the Czech Republic, and the new worldwide popularity can be traced back to a gentleman called Ing. Boháče from Slavonice. One bottle was made for his Besídka Hotel by Radomil Hill, whose family had originally produced absinthe during the high times of The First Republic in the 1920s. The Green Fairy –Zelena Muza – in the absinthe bottle made her first reappearance on the world stage in a beautiful Southern Bohemian town. By chance a theater group Divadlo Sklep -who were involved with the hotel – spotted the absinthe bottle and asked for some, the Green Fairy spread her wings and headed to Prague with that lucky band of actors.

 

 

Why would someone ask for absinth? It is actually well known! One only has to look around former Hapsburg Europe for other examples of this homemade thujone rich drink. For example Polish Piołunówka; this brew is named after “piołun” which is the Polish word for wormwood; the French word for wormwood is absinthe. Piołunówka is made by macerating wormwood and other herbs in alcohol and not by distilling; it is claimed that this helps the wormwood, and it’s constituent thujone,  to survive in a much more potent form. Then of course there’s Pelinovak from the former countries of Yugoslavia

 

Marilyn on Absinthe

Famous Czech absinth distiller Kyle J. Bairnsfather with Johnny Depp in Prague

Here’s Marilyn Manson on his first absinthe experience and Y2K with Johnny Depp – so where’s his Mansinthe brand of absinthe already! We’ve been waiting six months now!

The first time I drank it (absinthe) was in New Orleans, in 1996, when I was making Antichrist Superstar. It was very undistilled, similar to moonshine. I didn’t drink absinthe again until Y2K. I spent that New Year’s Eve drinking absinthe with Johnny Depp in the south of France. We were ready for the apocalypse, and when it didn’t come, we were disappointed, so we drank more absinthe and set off fireworks. Since then, I don’t drink booze, I drink absinthe.

Source: Rolling Stone Magazine