Six years ago yesterday, I made my very first own Absinthe. Today, the improved third batch of my „Absinthe Vivide“ is going on sale. Back then, I would have hardly imagined ever doing this commercially, so how did it come to this?

 I discovered it whilst reading Hemingway

I had heard and read about absinthe sporadically for a long time. The first time I really had a closer look at what it is was when reading Hemingway’s beautiful description of the absinthe ritual in For Whom The Bell Tolls. But it wasn’t until a friend of mine brought me a sample of homemade absinthe that I actually tried any. I liked it, and six years ago today, I made some myself. However, this could have been the end of this story. It was nice to have made some, but my interest waned.

Others wanted me to distill stuff for their parties

The unlikely turning point in this story was when I started playing American football. It is amazing how fast word spreads in a sports team about someone being able to make alcohol. Many parties with homemade absinthe followed, and at one such party, after a few glasses of absinthe, Siegfried suggested making and selling it commercially. I was skeptical at first (my first thought was that he had had enough alcohol now), but then again, what could we lose? It was also sure to be a lot of fun, so along with two other friends present, we started planning the company that would become Aixsinthe.

Creating Absinthe Vivide

The first step was to get an overview of the absinthe market. That included tasting many, many commercially available absinthes and was definitely the most difficult part. After such strenuous self-sacrifice, we looked at historical absinthe recipes and started systematically developing our own. After one year and over 100 trials, we felt we finally had it right and distilled the first batch of our „Vivide“.

Going from small test scales to the large production scale can be tricky, and though we were blown away by the positive reviews we received from many renowned connoisseurs, we realized some adjustments to the recipe were necessary to account for scale effects. We also received quite a few helpful tips from the absinthe community and from well-known distillers, especially Martin Zufanek.

For the second batch we therefore increased the amount of botanicals used to improve louche and mouthfeel. Despite this, the louche turned out poor because the anise contained little essential oil. We decided to search for new suppliers for almost all our botanicals for the third batch, going to great lengths to ensure the highest possible quality. We now use the wonderfully sweet anise of Andalusia, fantastic fennel of Provence and the amazingly aromatic wormwood of the Val-de-Travers, along with many other herbs that are now self-grown, resulting in a very smooth, full and complex absinthe we are sure you will love.

Buy Absinthe Vivide online

Absinthe Vivide 3rd edition – 50cl

$87.50

Absinthe Vivide oak aged 3rd edition – 50cl

$100.00