A 40ml dose louched with 200ml chilled water, no sugar was used for this review.

Color: copper sulfate solution.

Louche: thin oil trails that eventually manage to coalesce into a slight fog.

Aroma: Now. This is not an unpleasant aroma, but neither is it the aroma of absinthe. Cardamom/coriander-ish, with some lemon/flowery undertones a'la Avon Skin-So-Soft. Really kind of a pleasant aroma, but not necessarily like the aroma of something you want to *drink* with just chilled water and sugar.

Taste: please don't make me taste it again. It tastes like it smells: cologne-ish. Anise is missing completely.

Finish: Buy some sugarless minty gum. Chew it for 17 minutes. Put it on your bedpost overnight. In the morning, put a tiny tiny tiny drop of wormwood extract on it and chew it again: that's about it.

Overall: I read where the makers are marketing this as a drink additive, that is a better idea than claiming it tastes like absinthe when mixed with chilled water and sugar. It is a very complex flavor, and I do think it is a matter of balancing it with other drink ingredients: there are plenty of liquors that don't taste good on their own. Adding just 5ml of this will impart its flavor and some of it's color, and I can see where the swank mixologist could earn some points just for waving the ornate bottle over a libation. BUT, much sympathy for anyone who tries this as a "first absinthe experience". Much like losing one's virginity to a... well: something unpleasant.You can fill in the blank.

Thanks once again for the generous(?) contribution of a sample.

The Color is blue. What gives?

The Louche is thin and neither here nor there.

The Aroma is like Aqua Velva. Or old Spice, whatever.

The Flavor is nothing like any real Absinthe I have tasted,straight-up Wrong. I don't even know where to begin.

The Finish is characterized by a quick receding, but it should be much more quick.

Overall, this drink should be avoided by anyone seeking a pleasant drinking experience. I couldn't even get a quarter of the way through this drink. I simply see no reason to subject myself or anyone else to this.

I gave this a 2 for color because even though it looks totally fake, it's kind of intriguing/different. There is a debate out there (not on this site) on whether this is absinthe or not. It is definitely not. Don't believe any bartender or liquor store clerk tell you otherwise. It has none of the characteristics of even a good synthetic (fake) absinthe. As everyone says, it smells and tastes more like mouth wash. It allegedly contains wormwood, but I couldn't taste it. One reviewer thought this product was all-around pretty comical; he obviously didn't pay for it. I wish I could've tried it first.



If you want an absinthe substitute, go with Absente or Pernod; both are considerably better tasting and at least a little bit like absinthe. I was unable to finish this drink.

The color is an aqua unlike anything found in nature. It looks like Ty-D-Bol.

The louche is almost non-existent. I worked very hard to coax even a faint louche out between 2 and 3 to one.

The aroma is dominated by mint and a sharp herbal scent like summer savory. A citrus note increases the overall sharpness.

At the start here is some sweetness from anise, but a ver strong minty/sage taste overwhelms everything immediatley therafter. Following that is a strongly herbal flavor (sage? summer savory?, thyme?) which really seems out of synch with the rest. A little bit of wormwood creeps through at the end.

The finish is a bit of mint, mothballs, and a lingering bitterness. Ultimately, this is an unbalanced, fragmented and unpleasant drink. Sugar actually makes it worse, as it makes the sage flavor and bitterness linger.

This is one that I really did not like at all. However, the bottle is really great. Buy it for the bottle. Put something else in it.

I received a sample of LTV from a friend. It was sent in an amber bottle, so I couldn't see the color. I poured out a 20 ml dose, and watered 4:1.

I actually laughed out loud at the color when I poured it into the glass. It's completely artificial. On that basis perhaps I should have rated it a "2", however the color wasn't green, but some kind of blue green, a turquoise color. After some thought, I'll keep it at a 1 simply because I actually laughed.

LTV louches, but ends up being kind of transparent in some ways, but in others it seems opaque. Like I can't actually see through it. If I hold an absinthe spoon in the middle of the glass of louched absinthe it is hazy, and on the far side of the glass I only see the spoon a little. There is no opaline character to the louche, but there was a nice band separating the louched from unlouched drink that went on for a while.

The aroma begins to tell you that something isn't right. Room filling but with a minty mouthwash aroma. There's no detectable alcohol aroma, just this head cleaning mint (eucalyptus I believe).

The taste. Laughing again. The flavors are very thin. Like a lightly flavored vodka perhaps. That mint aroma is very strongly there in the flavor of course. There are at least two other flavors that I notice, but they aren't familiar to me. A strong citrus note, lemony comes to mind. I can't give this a "1" as the taste isn't unpleasant per se. It really seems more like a mouthwash. There isn't any harsh alcohol burn, so that's good. Now it's effecting my nasal passages. Yes it's eucalyptus. I can see I'm not going to finish this glass of "absinthe". I am going to rate this a "1" as I drink a bit more the flavors become more unpleasant.

The finish recedes quickly (thankfully) but not quickly enough, so I had to rate this a "1" because it's so wrong. It's not like a finish of absinthe. There ends up being some bitter notes on the tongue. Not AA like bitterness, but more like you bit on a lemon peel. After a while there's some numbing on the outer gums which is definitely not normal. The mintiness of the eucalyptus gets on the tongue and into the nose. Now I hope the finish will go away because it's just not what it's supposed to be.

I don't detect any wormwood. Not much anise, or the eucalyptus so overpowers everything else in this drink that it's really eucalypte not absinthe. This beverage could be fixed. If the other qualities had been more absinthe-like, I could forgive the funny color. I kept wanting to give a "2" in a rating, but as I drank it, it became more and more unpleasant. This was true with the aroma, taste and finish. If the finish didn't linger so long (over the course of drinking it) it would be more tolerable.

I'd say overall it doesn't qualify as absinthe. As an absinthe it's unacceptable = "1". As an unusual beverage there may be people who will find the eucalyptus/mint flavor pleasant I presume. I did not. In the end I poured my drink out. I doubt I drank even 1/3rd of it. If you're looking for absinthe, you'll have to try another brand.