DOSE:

1 glass

oral

Absinthe

(liquid)

BODY WEIGHT:

175 lb

I was in a bar with a couple friends one night, after some dancing on the dance floor we scuttled towards a couple seats which became available. One of my friends boyfriends offered to get me a drink, he asked if I had tried Absinthe before to which I replied 'ab-what?'. Two shots appeared in front of us, it was green and smelled strong. We returned back to the seats sat down and backed the shots, took a deep breathe and held it. I didn't know what to expect, but sure enough it was one which had an impact on my life. The shot hit me pretty quick, I was amazed, it usually takes a lot more than 1 pathetic shot to get me going, so I rushed back to the bar and bought another 3 shots, kept 1 for myself and shared the other 2. I was in my element for the rest of the night, nowhere near drunk but a nice merry feeling.

I began researching about Absinthe on the internet, the things I read about (good & bad) just encouraged me more and more to get some of this 'Green Fairy'. I discovered that there were some serious Absinthes as well as some wannabe's available, I only wanted the strong and best stuff that I could get my hands on, but due to being in a crap job, I was constantly broke each month until eventually I got my new job. A couple months later I had returned back to London to visit friends and family (as I moved away a couple months earlier). We went in search of some drink for my 21st birthday celebrations. Once in the shop my eyes browsed across the huge selection of alcohol and then suddenly, right before my eyes stood a tall slim green bottle with Vincent Van Gogh's face on it and the magical word 'Absinthe' across the top, I snapped up the last bottle he had for about £20 and happily read the whole label on the way back. 79.9% alcohol with a Warning to not drink to excess, yeah right!

Back at my friend’s house there were 3 of us, I explained to them that we had to use ice-cold water and sugar cubes etc, but as we were not prepared we had to make do with what we had. We tipped some sugar into a spoon poured absinthe over it, lit it and watched as the sugar only slightly melted before the flame went out. We tried lighting it again, only for the whole drink (in a plastic cup) lit on fire and some dripping onto the carpet. After that we thought to hell with it and just added to water and got on with it. I was gonna let my friend have the first glass but he chickened out so I took it off of him.

They started encouraging me to down the whole glassful in one go, I said there is no way, but they insisted and so I gave it my best shot. It was surprisingly easy, down and down it went till the glass was empty. I put the glass down and thought 'that was not so bad' but I had spoke too soon, my breath was taken away from me for about 3 seconds. I stood up gasping for air and then once the air hit my lungs, the fight to hold the drink down began, I felt I was losing the battle so I ran to the bathroom just in case, but luckily I had got the better of it.

I returned back to the room and had some water to help keep it down. Damn, I had never expected or experienced anything like that before. We skipped the whole ritual thing and just got on with neat shots, 1 of my friend took 2 and had to call it quits as it was hitting him and he still had to go somewhere that night, meanwhile the other friend took 1 shot and had to run to a window to throw up (granted they were not using shot glasses but guessing a shot amount using a cup). About 10-15 minutes later I felt myself rocking back and forth, I tried stopping but my head was spinning so fast when I did, so the rocking continued for the rest of the night. The throw up friend had another 1 or 2 shots to make up for his poor effort before and we continued and ended the night with a bunch of people in the house laughing at us.

I have recently ordered some Absinthe Online.com as I aim to perform the ritual correctly this time and have a very merry Christmas 2004 indeed!

Exp Year: 2004	ExpID: 38479
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jun 17, 2006	Views: 11,105
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Absinthe (4) : Small Group (2-9) (17), General (1)