MixMo Absinthe

It's mixology Monday time again and our hostess thinking of drinking has picked the bad boy of the drinks cabinet :- Absinthe. To be truthful, I use absinthe frequently, I just don't use a lot, it's place is in drops, dashes & rinses. I just wasn't that inspired, but hang on, this is the green fairy, Van gogh, Lautrec, and Paris. The more I thought about it the more I started leaning towards doing something a little bit different, sure I could mix up something playing to the strength of Absinthe, maybe a Ultra-dry Martini I like to call "Death right now" in punnage to Hemingway, or to play with that wonder drink the "Corpse reviver #2" , but different was where I wanted to go. Here then is a bit of a story and a cocktail to go with it.

It was February the 26th 2008, I'd been reading "Last of the mohicans", but it was time to sleep, I turned out the light. I was rather rudely awoken by a roaring noise & the bed shaking. I rolled out of bed onto the floor & back under the bed, it was an EARTHQUAKE ! About here I need to point out I live in the UK in the Midlands, earthquakes aren't that common, but I'd just been woken up with a depth charge of adrenaline, so rolling under the bed seemed reasonable. A couple of seconds (or more subjectively a lot of seconds) later and calm had been restored. For those who've never experienced an earthquake they are pretty loud and of course anything jigglable has been set making a noise too. I flipped the computer open & attempted to log on to the BGS to find out more, I also fired up a chat window to talk to some friends who would be awake in a different time-zone.

Then I thought maybe a nightcap would help settle everything down.

Quite what possessed me to open the savoy cocktail book I'll never no, but the redoubtable Harry Craddock had just the thing, an earthquake cocktail. Its not a drink for the faint hearted, in fact it's pretty ferocious.
1/3rd Gin
1/3rd Whisk(e)y
1/3rd Absinthe

Apparently it'll make you forget you are drinking through an actual earthquake, a claim I can well believe. It's shaken hard with ice. Unsurprisingly the main flavour is aniseed, the Whisky & Gin having been bullied out of the way. They do however calm the bitterness down (I've tried it made with pastis & it's almost sickly sweet) and take away the burn of the alcohol. Refortified I went to see what the BGS were saying about matters geological. Not a lot, most of the UK was hitting the site, so I checked a few other places and found that it was magnitude 4-5 tempting me to play "Fünf auf der nach oben offenen Richterskala" by Einstürzende Neubauten, but my neighbours may have managed to get back to sleep and it is somewhat raucous. After 45 minutes or so the drink & friendly banter had done their work and I was beginning to feel sleepy once more.

The earthquake turned out to be a mild 4.7, did no visible damage to my home, but was the topic of conversation for a good week. Before finding out that MixMo was absinthe I'd pretty much ignored the Earthquake cocktail, and making one to photograph and get tasting notes for reminded me why. Its a very strong drink, with one overwhelming taste aniseed, although it is quite well balanced, taking away some of the bitterness and burn. If you like the taste of absinthe & are looking for something different to the usual give it a go.

If you are caught in an earthquake of the smaller kind with little danger to life & limb get one mixed up and embellish the story, telling how you let the quake shake the drink for you and how you downed 2 or 3 straight to calm your nerves.