Is Absinthe legal in South Korea?!
Is Absinthe legal in South Korea?
If so/not, where can I find info on this?
Answers:
Not sure if it's legal, but while I was stationed on Camp Stanley, I ordered some online. I didn't have any trouble getting it. Fair warning, though, It tastes like Scope.
Unfortunately the Net is full of false ideas and myths about absinhte, here's what's real:
It's totally and completely false that absinthe causes hallucinations, it has been proven over and over again scientifically, either in surviving XIX century absinthe bottle either in todays modern brands of real absinthe.
Absinthe was banned because the early XX century wine producers, being threatened by the huge sales of absinthe lobbied together with religious conservative movements to forbid it under many false pretexts. Eventually, they did it. It was never banned in England, Spain and Portugal, in these two countries it is still produced today. The USA are currently the only country in the world still forbidding absinthe.
The hallucinogenic myth is being perpetuated by unscrupulous vendors (who make fortunes out of the ignorance of mainly american customers) and some manufacturers of a "thing" that is not absinthe. I'm talking about mainly czech producers who claim their "absinth" is "high on thujones".
Wormwood, arthemisia absintium, the plant, does in fact contain the mollecule thujone that despite looking similar to THC is not the same nor does it have the same effects. Before you had any hallucinations with thujone you would die first from it's toxicity since you had to ingest a massive ammount of it. The thing is that the very small ammounts of thujone in wormwood almost disappear completely through the process that any absinthe must suffer to be considered an absinthe: Distillation.
Further example of the ridiculousness of that myth, the aromatic plant used in some dishes, sage, has more thujone than wormwood, not enough to be toxic, of course.
So please, enjoy absinthe for what it really is: the most complex tasting drink made by Man, it can even be superior to the best red wines, and this because:
- ABSINTHE IS: Grape spirit distilled together with up to 9 different herbs, among them green anis (the main constituent), wormwood, petite wormwood, fennel, hyssop, melissa, angelica of the alps, star anis and sometimes coriander seeds. This process of slow distillation is very difficult and complex, it takes up to 18 hours of a carefully monitered distillation, a little too much temperature and it's ruined. That's why it can't be reproduced by amateurs. All spirits after distillation are clear as water, including whiskey and absinthe. Some absinthes are sold that way, others are coloured with natural herbs, so that green is simply clorophile, not some E-23758590...
-ABSINTHE IS NOT: cheap vodka with wormwood soaked in it, it would taste horrible because wormwood contains the second most bitter substance known to Man;
cheap grain alcohol artificially coloured and flavoured (the czech "absinths").
Final note, never, BUT NEVER burn a sugar cube over your absinthe, that's a fake, stupid commercial gimmick invented by the czechs in the 1990's, nobody ever drank absinthe that way in the XIX century. They drinked it this way:
- on a large, clear glass pour no more than two fingers of absinthe; then slowly, very slowly, drop by drop if you can pour ice cold water, no less than 2 parts of water to one of absinthe; you may notice your absinthe will become cloudy, opaque, it's a sign of it's authenticity. Now again very slowly and calmly, proceed with the tasting, absinthe is not to be stupidly gulped down like a shot, it must be appreciated with ease so that all the subtle flavours may toy with your pallate.
This said, the best brands of REAL absinthe in the market, available online, are french and swiss, namely more "cheap" ones like Un émile or Verte/Blanche de Fougerolles or Kubler, or more pricey but top notch like La Clandestine and especially the Jades.