Colour before water is dark green, slightly olive. I don't think I'm doing anything different, but the louche is just the most fantastic I've ever seen. It started out average with a slow build from the bottom, but once it reached what I figured was the final thickness the fun really began. Even paler clouds began cascading from the left half of the side of the glass I was watching toward the bottom of the right half. The final colour is so solid and vibrant it's a tad surreal.

Before louche aroma is warm and fruity (specifically reminds me of pineapple) with a pointed anise profile. A tad medicinal. Some floral wormwood notes peek through. After louche the aroma still has a lot of fruit in it but has blossomed and smoothed considerably. Baby powder settles on the nose like snow. Sweet.

The taste is quite different than the aroma; it's less sweet than I had anticipated and considerably more bitter, though not unpleasantly or inappropriately so. Wormwood is more dominant than other herbs with anise falling behind even the fennel. Spicy instead of fruity. How odd it is that it tastes so different from how it smells. There is a funk I could do without; it's a bit off-putting. The fruitiness just barely reasserts itself during the underwhelming finish, during which the slightly numbed palate oddly dries out considerably.

I'm enjoying this but I definitely see it as one I'd have to be in the mood for. As of right now I enjoy looking at it and smelling it more than drinking it. I believe that's a first.