This Ain't Your Grandmother's Dragon You're Chasing....

Psssssssst.
Hey!
Hey, Buddy.
C'mover here I wanna talk to you.
What do you know about Absinthe?



Obituary

Old men spend a lot of time reading the obituaries. So why not drink a few while you scour the agate for the names of your old friends? This cocktail turns the Martini on its head with the addition of absinthe, which, if you were taking an extended whiz in 2007 and didn't hear the news, is now legal again in the United States. Back in the day, people claimed that absinthe could cure malaria, give you seizures, and make you see things that weren't there. All it ever did for me was turn my drinks green and make everything taste like licorice.

"If I had a nickel for every pretty girl I bought a drink, well, I'd still be far behind."
- Neil, 67, labourer

2oz gin
1/4oz dry vermouth
1/4oz absinthe

I remember a few years back a friend of mine had offered to order some special party favours from the Chech Republic when I was flying east for a friends wedding. Now I'm not going to say if the package did indeed make it's way through customs but I will say this: The bachelor party ended before 11pm. And by 'ended' I mean some people were in a heap of blood and their own vomit in a Keg bathroom while the bus-boy was offering to have his dinner brought to him in the stall. Estimated time: 6:45pm.

We did switch it up a little bit with one of 'the usual suspects' out of town on assignment, and we had a special guest in her place. We got ourselves settled and cracked open the bottles and initiated one more into the fold. On first impression we have finally found something that has been able to overtake the pungent-nose of gin. If you've ever smelled Anise (or more common, your mother's black licorice) you have a good starting place for absinthe.

I can't quite explain it.. by all rights this drink should have put us all straight into the madhouse, or at least in line for a stomach-pump. But no, it was.. dare I say... delicious? Maybe it was the teal-tinge of the drink, maybe it was the fact we finally found SOMETHING that would stand-up to this bully known as gin, or maybe it was the tall, raven-haired beauty that spoke in an eastern-block accent to me from the shadows all night; who can say? We three travelers gathered our collective shit and sat down for game-time. This week's offering actually had nothing at all to do with rawk poses or electronic key-tars; no this week we went Geek-Old-School with a role-playing game called Fiasco. Our particular story surrounded 3 strangers woven together through strange rituals, a shared calling, and a NEED ... for a drinking buddy. Oh yeah, and a dragon.

When I came to at 3 in the morning, I realized that tonight was not altogether different from that Keg bathroom. Where am I? How did I get here? and What is that taste? And what's more - a solid sense that on this night, the gin was vanquished! For that alone, I give the Obituary 5 slotted spoons over an open flame. Next time you're browsing through the classifieds and find yourself in the obituary section of the paper, you raise your glass to those fine men and women that have passed. One of them just may have thrown themselves in front of a subway train to escape an absinthe-fueled apparition.

Bottom's Up!