The finish of this absinthe has got a heat I am not sure I care for. Almost black pepper and minty at the same time. I find this absinthe more enjoyable when sipped with sugar in an absinthe pipe and a splash of water than prepared the traditional way.





[editor's note: There is no such thing as an absinthe pipe. The tourist gimmicks being sold as absinthe pipes are actually port sippers. Absinthe should not be drunk neat. ~ Hiram]

The color is a very attractive feuille-mort. Very clear, bright and natural.



The louche is very fast and the action is not very exciting. A wall of clouds rises up from the bottom, and is complete by about 2 to 1. The louched color, though, is very nice with greener hues than the original color seemed to promise. Looks very rich and creamy to me.



The aroma really knocked me out. There is an amazing bass note of honey, new-mown grass, and clover up front. Later you smell the anise, basil, tarragon, lemon balm. It makes me hungry. I want to eat a giant plate of lasagna and drink the whole bottle. God, I dream about this aroma and wake up wanting more, no kidding.



The flavor is not exactly what the aroma promises. The anise comes on fast with a minty heat and is immediately overtaken by the wormwood. So much for first impressions. If you wait a moment longer the other flavors of basil and tarragon start asserting themselves. The bitterness lingers but is not out of balance. If you believe in the holy trinity of anise, fennel and wormwood, you may find this completely over the top. But I am digging the complexity.



The finish is more abrupt than the aroma. The wormwood bitterness lingers along with a somewhat hot antiseptic taate from the basil, and the alcohol seems a little more predominant at this point than is really desirable.



Overall, this is a *very* interesting departure from the path blazed by the new absinthe distillers. It is astonishingly good with food. Pour an ounce in your spaghetti sauce and you will weep tears of joy. I bought a second bottle right away just to make sure I don't run out. It is definitely quirky, and you may not like it. Or like me, you may find that the aroma penetrates your dreams and drags you back again and again. As others have said, maybe this is a uniquely California take on absinthe, as the Taboo is uniquely Canadian.

I received a 4 oz sample of the St George from a friend. I think it is the second batch. It was diluted 4:1.



The color out of the bottle was a nice amber feuille mort, very nice. Clear, clean, without sediment.



I'm only rating the louche a "3" as it was far too fast, and too heavy. Looking at the finished louche there are some golden highlights within it, and some blueness at the air-water interface. But I just didn't find the louche action itself very interesting. It just went very quickly to a heavy opaque cloud rising from the bottom.



I rated the aroma only "3" again as it really wasn't very strong, or floral. Definitely seems like some alcohol on the aroma and some other notes. But it wasn't something to make you say oh, that's nice, and promise something for when you drink it.



On the flavor, a "3" again. It's mostly star anise, which is much less interesting than green anise, with some brandy notes, and a bit of the other herbs. There's no wormwood to speak of that I can tell. When I took the first sip, swirled it around, chewed it, my response was "That's it?" Lots of tongue numbing from the star anise, but at least it doesn't scrape across the tongue leaving incisions in it's wake like star anise can do. There's no sense of tails, and the drink is quite smooth. So it's very drinkable.



Again a "3" for the finish. Too much star anise, some tingling, a little bit of the mouth saying "yes that's nice". But I can feel that it's fading already. In a couple minutes it may be gone.



Overall a "3". I couldn't find myself giving it a "2" as I did finish my drink. I didn't find it as terrible as my friend. It's somewhat unusual, but I really find the major flaw to be too much reliance on star anise. More AA would be good, but it really seems more like what pastis might be like. Maybe a very good one. I'm not so familiar with pastis so I can't comment further.



If I was going to buy just absinthes available on my local store shelves, I would keep this around. It's certainly well made, and a pleasant, easy to consume drink. If the flavor and finish were more like absinthe, and there were more of those qualities, I'd probably rate it a "4". Because it's so anethole dominant, it probably doesn't seem as weird as some have said. At least not to me.

Thanks to the generosity of a fellow WS member, I eagerly awaited this absinthe, but was ultimately disappointed. The aroma, while room-filling, was decidedly off-putting, reminding me of dandelions. This aroma has presented itself before in the Matter products, but not to nearly this degree. The color was beautiful though, and the louche was thick but fast and lacking in opalescence. Good wormwood bite in the finish though, perhaps the best thing about this absinthe.



Ultimately I feel that, while clearly a very well made absinthe, the ingredient choices put it beyond even quirky absinthes like the Montemarte and the Eichelberger Verte, into another realm altogether. Just not to my taste at all.

Different! This is not an Absinthe for everybody..

Louche was barely average looking, basically an uninspiring one, Color is a tad septic and earthy.Highly hyped for the multi-floralfauna aspects,the new domestic aromas of Fennel,Terragon and Nettles are at first mystical and swirling,building with an increasingly aggressive flavor as you dive into the glass,now,this is ok if it ends on a smooth finish,but its menthol bite aftertaste "snaps" at you at the end, thus this one becomes not my cup of Absinthe. Perhaps, its due the Brandy base with wormwood that Im not just not used to.Ouch!

The floral crispness and velvetness of Eich Verte is bouquet lite ,crisp and far preferred by comparison.This is not an Absinthe I would give to newbies just starting out as its

astringency and courseness in each sip can be overwhelming.Its really not something I want to pay even this reduced US price for. Agreed,its a good early USA attempt that has a lot of complexity and effort involved,but perhaps Im just spoiled on the Euro base Recipies,at least for now.Perhaps "Round Two" will be smoother.A good first try but "It ain'nt no Eich"!