Ramsey Campbell on Absinthe
Absinthe has long been, I don't know, a bugbear or something, of mine. My interest with it started here, with this excellent New Yorker article (Good luck reading that article). I had only the dimmest knowledge of what it was beforehand. Afterwards, though, I was armed with enough knowledge and curiousity to spend over $200 having a bottle of TA Breaux's authentic absinthe shipped to my door from France.
I'm not really sure what the legality was of the stuff at the time. Was it not available in liquor stores because it was illegal, or just because nobody wanted it? Now we can get Lucid (which is all right, although really nothing on the stuff I got from France that day), or any number of Absinthe type beverages at the liquor store. My local had Absinthe nips at the counter the other day.
I myself almost never drink hard liquor anymore, so I can't vouch to the potency or the relative authenticity of any of this stuff really, but I have to say the more accessible absinthe is, the less interesting it is to me, especially since honestly, it tastes pretty vile. Better than Tequila or Vodka, maybe, but still pretty vile.
Ramsey Campbell, author of the Severn Valley Lovecraftian horror stories, has a lovely article about absinthe on the Stone Skin Press website.
Ramsey Campbell's Goatswood and Less Pleasant Places: A Present Day Severn Valley Sourcebook and Campaign (Call of Cthulhu roleplaying)
This book I can't recommend from personal experience, but it looked like the most interesting book on Absinthe that Amazon had to offer. Absinthe: History in a Bottle
