A night in Venice

-- By Gypsy in San Fransisco on Fri, 9 Oct 2015 at 11:19.

I have been wanting to try absinthe since I hear about it years. The opportunity never arrived until I was spending a week in paris in 2007. Both my travel mates crashed early but I was keenly aware that Paris was right outside the hotel door and it was calling to me. Never afraid, I, to go anywhere alone I walked down the quiet street. It was near 2 Am. Then I saw dim lights coming from a basement door left open to the warm Paris night. Of course I was drawn to those lights like a month to a flame. I sat at the bar where only 3 others sat with the bartender behind the bar. Music that you would expect to hear in the deep of night in Paris was coming from a radio behind the bar. I was about to order a glass of wine when I realized what I was seeing. It was the "sugar cube" ritual I had only seen in movies. Bartender a the 3 others (2 men and a woman around my age...28) were intent on watching the eater drip over the cube into the glass. The resulting liqueur was a beautiful green I have never experienced before. For a second I thought I was intruding...that is until the bartender reached behind him, brought out a glass, smiled at me and set the glass in front of me! For the next 2 hours my new friends and I drank of the "Green Fairy" Then before I realized it the sun was coming yp. That's when Dina, Marcel, Marcia and Peter (the bartender) suggested we hit the streets of Paris. We did, walking along the banks of the Seine and finally endingup at Pierre Lachine (spelling is not exact) Cemetery to visit Jim Morrison grave. All I can say is MAGICAL...all compliments of the Green Fairy. Try it! Just start out very slow the first time. I was lucky to have "guides" to take me by the hand. Happy trippin'

Show all messages (22) posted to
the "Is absinthe strong in alcohol?" page

Vintage bottles of alcohol-strong absinthe

There's a lot of alcohol in absinthe, so treat the Fairy with some respect! But, it seems, alcohol is not the only thing at work in a bottle of absinthe...