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Essence of Absinthe

A spirit infused with wormwood leaves or flowers, chillies, lemon peel, and optional saffron and indigo.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and saffron match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 538 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Essence of Absinthe

Ingredients

Directions

Macerate

  1. Macerate the wormwood leaves or flowers in the spirit for 8 to 10 days.

  2. Strain and filter the mixture.

  3. Wash the lees with distilled water and filter twice.

  4. Add the washed lees to the spirit.

  5. If desired, mix in saffron and indigo spirit for color.

Serve

  1. Serve absinthe by pouring a small liqueur glass into a wine glass and adding water drop by drop.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Lemon + saffrontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together538 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Potato + saffrontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together121 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Spirit + saffrontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together69 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Spirit + lemontop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together256 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Wormwood leaves or flowers
Provides the characteristic bitter flavor and aroma as the spirit extracts its oils.
Strong spirit
Acts as the solvent that extracts flavor from the wormwood and later carries the finished absinthe.
Distilled water
Rinses the lees so they release remaining spirit and flavor before being filtered again.

The step that matters

Macerating the wormwood for 8 to 10 days. Too short a soak leaves the drink weak and underflavored, while the alcohol must fully draw out the plant's bitter oils. Steeping time controls how much flavor and bitterness passes into the spirit.

Swap the saffron

The recipe marks saffron as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spirit, potato, lemon):

  1. Rosemaryfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Corianderfits about as well
  4. Saffronthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spirit, potato, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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