[hewhowaits]

If you like anisette or any form of black liquorice you may like it otherwise stay away. I have tried may variations, from home stilled (not by me, hehe) to imported from Europe. (yes you can order it on line, they have very creative ways of working with the import papers but you end up signing off; if it gets confiscated by customs, your loss. It aint cheap for the good stuff either) I brought a case back with me from a European vacation with the family 2 years ago. (I mixed them up as we traveled country to country and by the time we left I had quite an interesting spread) When we returned to the U.S. I wheeled my case up to customs and told them it was a case of wine. they never even opened the box. hehe For me, The strongest (most potent?) was the home brew that I had the chance to try, a colleague did the distillation with Thujone she grew in her garden. Potent as hell but tasted down right nasty, some of the stuff I brought home was almost as good but tasted much better. The stuff I bought on line was strong and yummy but not cheap (not to mention the lose to customs issue)The cool thing with some of those vendors is that they post the thujone levels for each brand. Needless to say the higher the level the higher the price. Do a search. ;)
rmo

[uglybiker]

Absinthe rule of thumb:

Any brand that hypes thujone levels is crap.

The funny thing is, the REAL high quality brands (Duplais, La Petit,Clandestine, etc.) don't cost any more. And in many cases cost less!

[VOA]

“...a colleague did the distillation with Thujone she grew in her garden.”

Minor point: the colleague probably grew wormwood...which is the plant
ingredient that AFAIK gives abisinthe it’s content of the molecule thujone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thujone

History Channel’s “Modern Marvels” had a segment on a fellow trying to
imitate the pre-ban abisinthe production process. In addition to
wormwood, I think there were at least two other spices used
(one of them being sweet anise?)