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Drinks All Around: Wormwood's Green Fairy Frappe
An absinthey version of the Last Word
In 2007, absinthe returned to America’s bars and liquor stores. The “green fairy" was historically famed as the beverage of the Bohemian french demimonde, a favorite of Van Gogh and Baudelaire. Adding to its mystique, the wormwood in the drink was rumored to be productive of hallucinations and madness. As a result, it had been banned nationally since 1912. It took only about a hundred years to legally clear up the fact that the amount of thujone — the worrisome chemical in the wormwood — was harmless in the amounts that an absinthe drinker might ingest.
Wormwood bartender Jenny Kiss
I was 22 in 2007, and I was, as the kids today might say, here for it. Young, pretentious, and bibulous, as fascinated by the historic glamour of the drink as I was enamored of its bitter burn and its herbaceous anise flavor. I made the rounds of every absinthe establishment that I could that year, mostly in Los Angeles. I wanted absinthe that was served according to some variation of the traditional service, which involves dripping water from a specialized fountain over a sugar cube on an absinthe spoon into the drink itself, thus sweetening and diluting it to the patron’s taste, and causing the absinthe to “louche” (link), generating a flavorful little cloud in the glass. Some places liked to soak the sugar cube in absinthe, light it on fire, drop it into the glass, and then put out the fire with water.
Just now, the best place to drink absinthe locally is Wormwood. Its bar features dozens of varieties, which you can enjoy in the more direct way I just mentioned above — typically at the end of a meal — or which you can find in a number of their house cocktails. According to the two bartenders on duty during my visit, the Green Fairy Frappe is the most absinthe-forward of these. You can think of it as something like an absinthey version of a Last Word. The Last Word features gin, green Chartreuse, Luxardo Maraschino liqueur, and lime juice. The Green Fairy frappe consists of Ford’s London Dry Gin, Dead of Night absinthe, Luxardo Del Santo liqueur, house-made mint syrup, and lime juice.
Jenny Kiss, the bartender, told me a little bit about the frappe. The Dead of Night Absinthe Verte is distilled in Los Angeles. The Del Santo liqueur serves as a replacement for Chartreuse; they began to use it during the recent Chartreuse shortage. (I didn’t actually know before this that Luxardo made anything other than Maraschino liqueur and cherries.)
Its recipe is as follows:
1.5 oz. London dry gin
0.25 oz. green absinthe
0.75 oz. lime juice
0.75 oz. mint syrup
0.25 oz. Luxardo Del Santo liqueuer
Pour all ingredients into a cocktail shaker. Perform a whip shake with pebbled ice. Pour into a traditional absinthe glass or a footed highball glass. Garnish with mint sprigs et voila! The Green Fairy Frappe.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Drinks All Around: Wormwood's Green Fairy Frappe
An absinthey version of the Last Word
Drinks All Around: Wormwood's Green Fairy Frappe
An absinthey version of the Last Word
In 2007, absinthe returned to America’s bars and liquor stores. The “green fairy" was historically famed as the beverage of the Bohemian french demimonde, a favorite of Van Gogh and Baudelaire. Adding to its mystique, the wormwood in the drink was rumored to be productive of hallucinations and madness. As a result, it had been banned nationally since 1912. It took only about a hundred years to legally clear up the fact that the amount of thujone — the worrisome chemical in the wormwood — was harmless in the amounts that an absinthe drinker might ingest.
Wormwood bartender Jenny Kiss
I was 22 in 2007, and I was, as the kids today might say, here for it. Young, pretentious, and bibulous, as fascinated by the historic glamour of the drink as I was enamored of its bitter burn and its herbaceous anise flavor. I made the rounds of every absinthe establishment that I could that year, mostly in Los Angeles. I wanted absinthe that was served according to some variation of the traditional service, which involves dripping water from a specialized fountain over a sugar cube on an absinthe spoon into the drink itself, thus sweetening and diluting it to the patron’s taste, and causing the absinthe to “louche” (link), generating a flavorful little cloud in the glass. Some places liked to soak the sugar cube in absinthe, light it on fire, drop it into the glass, and then put out the fire with water.
Just now, the best place to drink absinthe locally is Wormwood. Its bar features dozens of varieties, which you can enjoy in the more direct way I just mentioned above — typically at the end of a meal — or which you can find in a number of their house cocktails. According to the two bartenders on duty during my visit, the Green Fairy Frappe is the most absinthe-forward of these. You can think of it as something like an absinthey version of a Last Word. The Last Word features gin, green Chartreuse, Luxardo Maraschino liqueur, and lime juice. The Green Fairy frappe consists of Ford’s London Dry Gin, Dead of Night absinthe, Luxardo Del Santo liqueur, house-made mint syrup, and lime juice.
Jenny Kiss, the bartender, told me a little bit about the frappe. The Dead of Night Absinthe Verte is distilled in Los Angeles. The Del Santo liqueur serves as a replacement for Chartreuse; they began to use it during the recent Chartreuse shortage. (I didn’t actually know before this that Luxardo made anything other than Maraschino liqueur and cherries.)
Its recipe is as follows:
1.5 oz. London dry gin
0.25 oz. green absinthe
0.75 oz. lime juice
0.75 oz. mint syrup
0.25 oz. Luxardo Del Santo liqueuer
Pour all ingredients into a cocktail shaker. Perform a whip shake with pebbled ice. Pour into a traditional absinthe glass or a footed highball glass. Garnish with mint sprigs et voila! The Green Fairy Frappe.
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