-Color-
Before Water: Clear vivid and natural amber-olive-green. The sample I had was a bit young, which contributed to the brightness, but I’d bet this will settle into a nice amber or peridot.

After Water: Thickish but good and opaque; light olive.

-Louche-
Great fog bank and bouncing tendrils, good pace.

-Aroma-
Before Water: Mild anethole along with sharp star anise, herbaceous and earthy.

After Water: A distinctly fragrant and dryly floral wormwood, citrus; anise and fennel are mild but subtly juicy in the back. Star anise is still one of the most prominent scents, and though I know not much of it was used, I feel it comes across as just a bit too cloying and distracting.

-Flavor-
Enjoyably mild spice, citrus and minty notes up front. The tasty A.a. from the aroma is very prominent and contributes the same dry floral character, along with a strong but well balanced savory bitter. The anise and fennel provide a backbone role, but are nice and full. It’s interesting, but I did not perceive the star anise in the actual flavor, only the aroma.

-Finish-
A dry, slowly receding wormwood zang carries us through. Perhaps slightly too much numbing though.

-Overall-
I found this absinthe overall to be very enjoyable and would recommend it. The big wormwood character is similar to Pontarlier, but is different enough to distinguish itself and is obviously very high quality (if I’m not mistaken, it’s the same stuff used to make L’Italienne). The one thing that actively detracted from this absinthe was the star anise in the nose. However, it did not hurt the flavor, which I found to be one of the better, more expressive wormwood forward profiles I’ve had recently.

Since it was young at the time of tasting, I wonder if the cloying from the badiane aroma will dissipate with time, and how long that might take. I recently had some PF Taragona 1950, and though the presence of star anise was about as obvious, it somehow wasn’t bothersome in the least.

Notes: 3-4:1 ratios tasted; with and without sugar.