I had a lot more sympathy, until I realized he’d spray-painted the ground. That shit is NOT OK; spray paint is generally very poisonous, with only a few exceptions -.-’ . Spraying solvents directly into your water table is not a good move and I’m also not down with poisoning the plants he painted.
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I withdraw my endorsement for drugged up house painting florida man. I’ll never be president due to these kinds of mistakes! 
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Florida is a hell of a drug
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I didn’t realize until recently that absinthe had been made legal again in the US. ?? Found out when we went to pick up Pernod from BevMo!
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It’s legal in Canada too, and apparently always has been;
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Canada (not) Dry.
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Yeah, there’s some good ones available from my local “Total Wine” as well.
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And yet we can only buy alcohol from the liquor or beer stores; sales are restricted, at least in Ontario, to those two outlets.
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It was illegal because it contained wormwood as a flavoring. That was removed quite awhile ago, so it’s legal again - but is not the same drink, because it’s no longer flavored with wormwood. Like Coca Cola no longer has cocaine in it, so it doesn’t give you the lift the original Coca Cola gave.
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Just visited relatives in a Florida HOA community that looks a lot like this. They talked about the Caribbean family that moved in and painted their house orange. That turned out to be a learning moment for the residents who now know the only remedy the HOA has is a few hundred dollar fine. Apparently others are starting to paint in unapproved colors. Rainbow coalition of Florida unite!
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Absinthe certainly still has wormwood in it. During the time it was illegal, Pernod made a substitute without the wormwood, and that’s probably still available, but there is now a real Pernod absinthe. Other substitutes include the drink Herbsaint, which mimics the flavor pretty well, and even louches when you add water. The numerous absinthes now on the market do contain wormwood and the characteristic bitterness.
The toxic part of the wormwood is a chemical called thujone. High levels of this compound can cause seizures, and it was blamed for the ill effects of absinthe that led to the ban.
Before the ban, absinthe had become so popular that a lot of distillers were making low-quality ones to meet demand, and some of them had dangerous ingredients in them. Most of the run-up to the ban, however, was a sort of reefer-madness push largely driven by the French wine industry, as absinthe’s popularity had cut into wine sales. Many of the crimes attributed to absinthe drinkers were likely just due to high alcohol consumption. Absinthes are typically high-proof, as they are diluted for drinking; I have one bottle that is 144 proof, for example. Diluted 5-1, it’s very palatable, but you are getting more alcohol than the equal amount of wine.
There is a New Yorker article behind their paywall from 2006 that profiles chemist/distiller Ted Breaux, who did a chemical analysis of a bottle of pre-ban absinthe, and found that the levels of thujone were well within safe limits on a high quality absinthe.
Since then, Breaux has made a number of recreations of pre-ban recipes; these were easily available via the grey market before the ban was lifted, and around 2010 or so, absinthe was once again made legal in the US, as long as the thujone level is below limits.
I bought a few bottles of Breaux’s absinthes in 2008 or 2009 via ‘Liquors of France’, which shipped them to the US via USPS. Now, there’s a pretty full complement of styles, including excellent domestic versions.
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I have had absinthe in Canada, after hearing it hyped up so much here in the States. It did nothing for me.
I haven’t tried it, but I dislike all the anise flavoured alcoholic drinks, so I have no desire to give it a go. I don’t even care for licorice.
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To me, it tastes almost exactly like ouzo. I can take or leave ouzo, but it has never made me hallucinate green fairies. The green fairy thing is bullshit cooked up in the minds of American teenagers. I doubt there’s any truth to it whatsoever.
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Same. I am curious to try it and if i do it’ll be a one time thing because i am very selective about anise flavored stuffs. I can tolerate Nordic style salty black licorice but i don’t particularly like it, and when it comes to drinks flavored with it i just can’t enjoy it. It’s gross.
As others have mentioned above, Absinthe doesn’t give people trips as that’s a vestige of old propaganda to get the drink banned. It’s probably a placebo effect for those that do claim to experience something.
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Or “Florida Man” - aka. HomoFloridaensis - a close relative of Homosapiens known for it’s strange and neurotic behaviour.
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Some years back, when I had first learned of absinthe being once again legal, I looked into its history and thought the run-up to its ban seemed eerily similar to Reefer Madness. I don’t think that’s just a coincidence, even if the vested interests were different.
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I find that the herbs in absinthe tend to keep you alert, counteracting the alcohol. I can see why writers and poets would like it. Think of it as a prototype Red Bull and Vodka. Have never hallucinated from it. Most people who are interested in trying it demur once I tell them it tastes like licorice.
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