-Color-
Before Water: Perfectly clear and refractory.

After Water: On the thick side, but pleasantly so, with appropriate opalescence.

-Louche-
With a 1/sec fountain drip, takes a little while for cloud formation to begin (good, because most blanches I’ve had louche quickly), evolving into a bluish fog with cool bouncing swirls.

-Aroma-
Before water: Quit a vivid grape alcohol reminiscent of Arrack, but with slightly more sweet and less vinegar.

After water: The intense grape alcohol aroma has turned into an intense grape candy or soda tone. There are alpine herbs here to, but they are pretty unified under the heavy grape blanket.

-Flavor-
The candy grape indicated by the aroma is here in its full potency with the sweetness leading into the start of the anise, and in turn a ball of powerful herbs. The trinity is here and there are auxiliary herbs that add to the whole, but due to the big base, I find them hard to resolve individually (until the wormwood finish anyway). Don’t get me wrong though, the herbs are spicy and intense (even verging on sharp and kitschy before my bottle had a long while to rest).

-Finish-
A zingy finish is helped along by the wormwood with a good sustain from the powerful taste.

-Overall-
8 months ago, I didn’t like this nearly as much as I do now. The grape base and united herbal punch were overpowering almost to the point of being harsh (making the aroma just a bit stinky as well), but then lost what I wanted to open up on the addition of water beyond around 4:1 or so. Now that time has passed, there's still big grapes and concentrated herbs, but mellowed and opened up a bit for a very tasty experience. I’m averaging the scores from when it was first opened to when I was taking notes on the final glasses after 8 months of aging. I think around 5 or 6 months is when it turned from “good but over the top” to “very tasty”.

Notes: Multiple tastings from 3:1 to 4:1, fountain drip.