If you’re more of a booze hound than a beer snob, this NY Times story about locally distilled absinthe might spark your interest. The article covers the indie booze-brewing adventures of a New York absinthe maker, including a florid description of her product made using “fennel, anise, hyssop, lemon balm, lemon thyme and violet.” Evocative, no?

The last (and only) time I sampled absinthe was on vacation in Prague. We went to a bar called Marquis de Sade and enjoyed  absinthe shots, complete with fire and sugar cubes. (As my friend Tom once said as we drove to a bonfire party at our high school, “Dude, when I think of the two coolest things in the world…they’re both fire.”) As a British ex-pat played Who covers on an acoustic guitar, we got so completely hammered with another couple vacationing from Slovenia that it took us 2 hours to find our hotel, which was about a 10 minute walk from the bar.

Apparently, in my very drunk state I happened upon the guy who served us breakfast earlier that day and shouted “Hey! Waffle Guy!” and then proceeded to slur at him about soccer and the European hockey championship (the Czech Republic’s national team was contending that year). The next morning we got breakfast again at the same cafe, but by then memories of the night before were lost in the haze of a hangover (I believe that’s called a “blackout”). All I knew was that the waiter was giving me the hairy eyeball throughout breakfast. Don’t get me wrong, I love flattery no matter the orientation. But the intense staring was seriously creeping me out. When I pointed this out to my wife she said “Oh yeah, I think you yelled at him around 2am about waffles and soccer.”

Thanks for the memories, Green Fairy.