Absinthe and chocolate—the ultimate decadent pairing?

We gave last weekend’s Candlelight Club a “Resolution Busters” theme: apparently the third week in January is round about the time that a lot of people who made New Year resolutions give up and go back to their old ways. Something like the Candlelight Club was never really in a position to offer a self-improvement angle, so we decided to go the opposite way, and our cocktail menu this time was based around things you might have hoped to give up, or indeed take up. Our Roll-Up the Barrel cocktail featured Jade’s Perique tobacco liqueur (as a nod to those trying to quit smoking); our Off Down the Gin cocktail featured a Lucozade Sport reduction (the world’s first isotonic cocktail? Replaces the gin lost through exercise).

We also had a Girl’s Best Friend cocktail which smuggled in chocolate via a harmless, neutral vodka and absinthe base. Our mixologist these days is David Hamilton-Boyd of Organic Spirit and his recipe included La Maison Fontaine Chocolat, a chocolate and French absinthe liqueur. I know Jenny of Sip or Mix who distributes La Maison Fontaine’s absinthe here, but I did not know about this product and was interested to check it out—off the top of my head I could certainly imagine that chocolate and absinthe might go together well.

The back label tells how this beverage was inspired by a hand-written recipe for crème de cacao dating from the 1920s and discovered in a recipe book at the distillery, which leads me to expect an intensely chocolately experience, with a little absinthe blended in. But as soon as you uncork the bottle you are hit primarily by that white absinthe smell: it’s a fragrance that all bleu/blanche absinthes seem to have, something I can only describe as overripe buttercups. With a hint of Plasticine. Perhaps it is wormwood or some other herb, but it lends a characteristic sour, floral element, quite sharp in this case. On top of that this drink has orange, anise and coriander seed on the nose, plus chocolate too, of course (though the latter is not dominant). There are suggestions of rum and ginger as well, reminding me of rum and raisin ice cream. But on a more mundane level you could say sit smells like a Terry’s Chocolate Orange that has been kept in the same cupboard as a box of liquorice allsorts.

The same balance follows through on the palate, which is again ruled by the absinthe elements. It is also pretty sweet (and, at 25% ABV, much lower in alcohol that absinthe itself). The chocolate is definitely there in the mix, but it is relatively subtle. In fact, in my quest to establish to what extent chocolate and absinthe are indeed well matched, I find myself spiking this drink with Mozart’s chocolate bitters, which are very chocolately indeed, particularly on the aroma side of things.

This leaves me thinking that the two things do indeed go together, but in fact my curiosity drives me to try adding the bitters to a green absinthe, in this case La Fée’s new recipe Parisienne. Although this absinthe is less anise-driven than the old formula, it does work better. La Fée’s blanche absinthe seems a bit more anise-led, so I try adding a drop or two of the chocolate bitters to that and the effect is very pleasing and harmonious indeed. The bright aromatic thrust of the aniseed seems to partner perfectly with the warm richness of the chocolate.

As for La Maison Fontaine’s offering, it is a curious beast. If you primarily like chocolate you may be disappointed—and you certainly have to like white absinthe to enjoy this drink. But, as I say, comparing it to a couple of other white absinthes reveals that this beverage has a curious, pungent fragrance all of its own.

A Chocerac

On La Maison Fontaine’s website there are some cocktails and suggested serves, several of which focus on combining this liqueur with salt: either licked on the side, as if drinking with a tequila shot, or dropped into the drink, or in the form of cheese and dried meats consumed alongside. I try it with some shavings of parmesan and it does indeed work well, the sweetness balancing in the same way that sweet chutney, quince jelly or fresh figs might go with cheese. I even find that the sharpness of that characteristic white absinthe element makes a good foil against the intense savouriness of the cheese. For my money this is the most pleasant way to consume the liqueur.

My eye is also caught by another suggested cocktail, a Negroni variant called a Trinité that combines 30ml of the Fontaine liqueur with 20ml Campari and 25ml reposado tequila. This too is enlightened—there is a synergy, or perhaps just a family resemblance, between the pungency of the absinthe, the soft, smoky, herbal notes of the tequila and the bitter, earthy rootiness of the Campari, with the liqueur also bringing a balancing sweetness that comes from the red vermouth in a normal Negroni.

Whoever created the cocktail recipes and suggested servings has done a good, thoughtful and inventive job. But ultimately all these drinks are dominated by that odd flavour. I don’t have any normal La Maison Fontaine blanche to hand to see how similar it is, but checking a couple of other white absinthes it seems to me that in those, perhaps more anise-inflected, contexts the flavour in question presents a better, and less disconcerting, balance than it does in this liqueur.

As a final experiment, I make a sort of Sazerac, a classic absinthe cocktail, but incorporating the Mozart bitters as well:

Chocerac
25ml Bourbon (I know it should be rye but this was all I had)
25ml Cognac
12.5ml sugar syrup
2 dashes Peychaud’s Bitters
2 dashes Mozart Chocolate Bitters
3ml-ish La Fée Blanche Absinthe
Lemon twist garnish

Stir all but the absinthe with ice and strain into a chilled tumbler which has had the absinthe rolled around its inside. Squeeze a piece of lemon peel over the top; purists discard the peel rather than dropping it in. I actually added a bit more than just the absinthe residue, about a coffee spoon more.

This is a corker. Lift it to your nose and you get chocolate and lemon and dark, woody spices like cinnamon, plus a higher spice note from the anise too, and a hint of marmalade, all in perfect equilibrium. On the palate it is just the right level of sweetness for me, balancing the fire of the spirit, with all those spices darting around your tongue too. Probably the most satisfying Sazerac I’ve ever had. So there.

La Maison Fontaine Finest French Absinthe Chocolate Liqueur is about £30 a 70cl bottle.

Observations on the preparation of absinthe

Undiluted Absinthe Duplais

Even if you are not, for some reason, irresistibly attracted to the romance of absinthe (or indeed have actually tasted some, pronounced it foul and vowed never to breathe its name again) you still probably know that there is a whole ritual to its preparation. But when you ask yourself why, that's when things get interesting.

Absinthe is usually bottled at somewhere between 55 and 70 per cent ABV, but it was never intended for the stuff to be drunk neat. (The high strength is actually because the chlorophyll that leaches from some of the herbs in absinthe and gives it the famous green colour is not stable at alcohol concentrations below that: it tends to turn brown more quickly and throw a sediment, which would be rather unappealing.) It is usually diluted with water—and always has been—and I've heard recommended levels of anything up to 8:1 water to absinthe. But more than that, the water is traditionally added slowly, drop by drop.

Water is added and the louche starts
to form, hanging at the bottom

In absinthe's heyday, the preparation involved all manner of paraphernalia. Absinthe glasses often had a demarcated section at the bottom, sometimes a sort of bulb or lobe, which represented the section that was to be filled with the spirit—the rest of the glass was for the water. (See the Lucid glasses in the photos in the post below.) This apportionment was known at the "dose", a fact which doubtless fuels the idea that absinthe was a drug. In a café or bar there would be absinthe fountains, big vessels (usually glass, but I'm told that New Orleans' Old Absinthe House had marble ones) filled with iced water from which taps or spigots projected: you put your glass under one of these and dripped water into your drink. It was usual to sweeten the drink by placing a sugar lump on an "absinthe spoon", a flat, perforated, metal object that rests across the top of the glass. As the water dripped over this it would gradually dissolve into the drink. Absinthe spoons were made in all manner of handsome, elaborate designs; vintage ones are still knocking around and since the absinthe revival many new absinthe disillers offer branded equipment.

More water and the louche dominates,
with the hydrophobic layer showing
distinctly at the top

All manner of stories abound of how ruinous the incorrect preparation of absinthe can be. Henri Balesta in his 1860 Absinthe et Absintheurs describes the almost predatory "professors" of absinthe, just itching to show the novice how badly wrong they are getting it, and offering lessons for a fee. (In Raymond Queneau's 1968 fiction The Flight of Icarus the seasoned absintheurs are so horrified by the carelessness with which Icarus has diluted his drink that they insist it is discarded and he start again.) Modern absinthe maker Ted Breaux is fond of quoting French author and absintheur Raoul Ponchon, who said that if the water is too warm you might as well be drinking "donkey piss or an enema broth". (Never having tasted either I will bow to superior knowledge here.)

"Absinthe does take a bit of experience to prepare," says David Nathan-Maister, absinthe expert and MD of absinthe specialists Oxygénée. "It's not like bourbon where a first-timer can pour it, taste it and think, 'Where have you been all my life?' Absinthe is more difficult to prepare, more subtle, and you ideally have to know its history and culture."

Cynics might note that Balesta paints a picture of the novice first tasting the absinthe that he's been hearing all about—and finding it rather nasty. The suggestion is that not only will peer pressure keep him trying until he develops the taste, but also the belief that inexperienced preparation will ruin the drink will persuade the drinker that absinthe isn't actually horrible after all—he is just not drinking it right.

Nearly there (some might drink it
at this stage)

Cognoscenti of the ritual also seem to value style and flourish—there was even a fashion for adding the water from a great height—but even if we dismiss this as just social ritual, there is still the recurring emphasis that the water should be added slowly. But what is the point of this?

Part of it is surely visual. As you dilute the drink the alcohol concentration drops, reaching the point where the various aromatic oils dissolved in it are forced to precipitate out, forming a milky emulsion—and watching the pretty opalescent patterns gradually swirl and form is half the fun. But Nathan-Maister says it does also affect the taste, as the different oils in the mixture precipitate out at different concentrations. When I spoke to him recently at the Boutique Bar Show in London he suggested there was a "layering effect going on". (So different strata of the finished drink will taste different? I have certainly not found that to be the case.) On the Oxygenee website it is claimed that by releasing the different oils separately you get to appreciate their aromas separately. Does this mean you have to have your nose over the glass as the water goes in? Or do the aromas marshal themselves in different zones of airspace for your delectation?

Ready to drink!

But there is one thing I can attest to. At a Lucid tasting Breaux suggested that one should add water until a specific visual cue is reached: as the cloudiness (known as the "louche") starts to form it hangs at the bottom of the glass, with a dark, transparent, oily-looking layer at the top, technically called the hydrophobic layer. This gradually reduces, and the suggestion is that you should stop dilution when this layer just disappears, or is about to. I put this to the test with Lucid and La Maison Fontaine, a new white absinthe brand, and it was something of a revelation. I had tasted both products before but this time I got much more out of them.

The Lucid had a sweet anise bouquet with subtle herbal elements, aromatic top notes and what I can only describe as a pleasant rubbery hint. On the palate it showed a broad and balanced spectrum of flavours, with hints of orange and blossom, a dry woody spice and a distinct peppery finish. I expected the Maison Fontaine to be less complex—I guess because of the lack of plant-derived colour—but in fact it had a livelier nose, full of sweet flowers, butter and vanilla. The palate too is floral. Overall, I'd say it is perhaps a bit cloying for my tastes, and I preferred the drier, quieter presence of the Lucid.

Why did these absinthes taste so different? Perhaps the precise dilution is ideal for releasing all the aromatic elements, or perhaps it is true that the gentle precipitation of the oils does preserve their subtleties. But if you find yourself with a bottle of absinthe within arms reach do try preparing it this way and see what you think.

To sugar or not to sugar

Belgian Victor Berlemont prepares absinthe in his Soho
pub, The York Minster (later The French House), in 1939.
Absinthe was never made illegal in Britain. (Apologies
to Getty: I'm not made of money, you know.)

I've personally never found an absinthe that I felt needed sweetening. (Even the foul, bitter Czech ones just taste foul and bitter with an uninteresting sugariness alongside.) However, historically most absintheurs would have had at least one lump of sugar with their dose. I gather that palates at that time were fonder of sweetness and French drinkers were more attuned to cordials, syrups and sweet liqueurs. One thing you should definitely avoid is the "Czech fire ritual", where a spoonful of sugar is soaked in absinthe, ignited (ostensibly to caramelise the sugar) then stirred into the drink, invariably setting fire to the absinthe in the glass. This was created in the 1990s for practical marketing reasons. "Absinthe has always been a public drink, partly because of the ritual," says Nathan-Maister. "In that sense it's like tequila, with the ritual of the lime and the salt. But the traditional absinthe ritual is slow and contemplative, and that's no use in a modern nightclub. So the UK importer of an early Czech absinthe came up with the fire ritual, developed from the traditional way of serving Sambuca, alight with a coffee bean floating in it." In any case, many Czech "absinthes" don't actually louche—although this is preferable to the practices of nineteenth-century purveyors of low-grade ersatz absinthe, who added antimony salts to create an artificial louche.)

Some antique absinthe spoons. See the picture of M. Berlemont to see how they were used, placed over the glass