Meet The Hulk “When Absinthe Meets Guinness” @ Wabisabi

By Ben Liew  •  25 May 2009 in Reports

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Have you ever woken up next to a Green Fairy? Well, we came pretty close to taking her back home last night at the Absinthe sampling party at Wabisabi. Meet The Hulk “When Absinthe Meets Guinness” was a cozy little public event and a good introduction to the alcohol infamous for inspiring the likes of Vincent Van Gogh, Oscar Wilde and Ernest Hemingway. And since we’ve always wanted to write novels, we thought we’d check it out.

For those of you who are still unacquainted with the legendary alcohol, Absinthe is strong stuff (around 45-75% ABV). It was banned in most countries until now, not because of the high alcohol content, but rather due to Thujone. Thujone is a chemical found in wormwood which is one of the herbal ingredients that is used to make Absinthe. It was used to treat stomach aches in ancient times, but can cause hallucinations in large doses.

Before you go out and buy a crate load of Absinthe just to get that LSD effect you’ve been after so long, stop! There isn’t enough Thujone in Absinthe to make you hallucinate. In fact, research has shown that previous estimates of Thujone levels in pre-ban Absinthe were greatly exaggerated.

It is however, like stated before, a strong drink that is guaranteed to hit you after just one shot. The drunkenness or high of Absinthe is unlike other alcohols. You get more of a clear headed high and uncontrollable happiness (as long as you don’t over do it). Kinda like getting stoned with alcohol.

We had 4 different shooters that night. Smurf was a blue minty Curacao concoction, Lolita a pale yellow passion fruit blend and then there were Dr Jekyll and Ms Hyde, Absinthe with green mint and cranberry juice respectively.

But the highlight of the night was The Hulk, a half pint of Guinness mixed with a shot of clear Absinthe. We “bombed” the shot into our pints and drank up. Our personal option is that 2 of these mothers would definitely knock out even an experienced drinker by the end of the night. But don’t take our word for it. Some celebrity drinkers can really hold their liquor so for veteran drinking advice, you should checkout The Thirsty Blogger and see what he says about Absinthe and where to get it.

Back to Absinthe. There are 2 different bottles that come from Switzerland being sold in Malaysia currently. The first, La Clandestine is a clear-coloured Absinthe in a blue bottle. It’s the only Absinthe handproduced in the village where Absinthe was first born. The 2nd, Angelique, is distilled using 12 plants and is green in colour. La Clandestine is 53% ABV while Angelique is 68% ABV.

The sampling was over around 10-ish. By this time, we were already semi-senget so we decided to hop in a taxi and head back, leaving the Green Fairy to her mischief. Around 2 in the morning, a couple of our friends who had stayed back at the party finally arrived home. They looked happy but disorientated.

So we asked, “How did it go?”

They gave us long incomprehensible answers so we assume it must have been a good one! J

Image TWE