Absinthe without
alcohol
Below is a method I used to process
absinthe before drinking it. The problem (as I see it) with absinthe is
that it contains a specific alkaloid (Thujone according to Wikipedia)
which is desolved in quite a lot of alcohol (>~70%). And the problem
is of course the alcohol. How can one try the active ingredient without
being utterly drunk after a sip or two ? One strategy is to get used to
drinking alcohol. That strategy is however not very healthy.
So, I set out to get rid of the
alcohol, which in general is not a difficult task, given that alcohol
tends to evaporate on its own accord. The only thing we need to do is
to put a sensable amount of absinthe in an open container (a glass for
instance) and wait for a couple of days. During this period the alcohol
evaporates and - this is the plan- the active absinthe ingredients stay
in the liquid. Below is a time laps video spanning two days of absinthe
evaporation. One can see that the color of the liquid diminshes while
at the same time fat droplets form. After a couple of days one can
drink the remaining stuff.
Taking absinthe in this manner led to
a number of trips, which all had more or less the same experience: A
numbing of the brain and a clarity of thought which is probably the
result of different activiation levels of the Neurons (capital N: I
love my Neurons :-)). To me it seemed that the firing rate of Neurons
was decreased in such a manner that they require more energy before
they will fire. As such, the brain tends to be still in general, and
only a limited number of viewpoints get through to the conscious level.
One essentially becomes dumb of this stuff but the remaining thoughts
are clear. One can without emotional involvement observe behaviors that
are otherwise never brought clearly to the foreground or are filled
with doubts and uncertainities.
Each time that I tried the above
recipe I got a bit of a headache the day after. So there is definitely
a downside to it. From my point of view: it was interesting to do it
once, twice or three times but I would not classify the experience as
life changing or even important.
