Mephisto Absinthe Classique

Anise and heat.

The nose is extremely heavy on ethanol with a suggestion of anise and spice. The heat is immediately noticeable on the palate immediately with a very mild wormwood flavor and light sweetness. The mouthfeel is extremely dry, and it removes all moisture from your mouth when consumed straight. The addition of water opens up the wormwood to create a more bitter anise-forward beverage with herbal notes in the background. The spirit is slightly earthy in color and has no visible addition of green dye, although earlier bottlings may have had this green dye added. The addition of water creates a light louche effect turning the spirit into a liquid that looks like lemon juice. There is not an extreme louche effect here. Decent stuff for the price. The spirit is present at even small rinses in cocktails.

Rating: 13/23 Whoa, this is green! Not just a hair blue on top of yellow or a sort of earthy, natural green like Chartreuse, but an actual alien-goo-nearing-phospohorent green! It says "colored with Wormwood P?ntie?", which looks like it says "Pontiea", but probably says "Pontica" (if you look at the label, it's totally an "e", not a "c"!). Anyway, it probably refers to Artemisia Pontica, otherwise known as Roman Wormwood. I like this already, based on that name, but I suspect that most of this green color does not actually come from Artemisia Pontica. Even great liqueurs like Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao are colored though, so I'll try not to assume anything based on that. N: It has an interesting juxtaposition of big, sweet floral scent with some fruitiness versus bitter, herbal, medicinal smells. Overall, it's fairly light, but I get an interesting complexity and a nice balance out of it. Crucially, the bitterness from the wormwood is not threatening to overwhelm from the beginning, so there is some real promise here. P: The palate starts light and sweet with lots of floral character coming in before giving way to a bit more sweet fruitiness that is hard to place but is kind of on the apple and light tropical fruit spectrum. Something at this point tastes a bit off though. It tastes like the fruitiness is trying to pass the ball again to a different profile, but none shows up, so it gets stuck on this single note that is amazingly persistent and gradually becomes more artificial. This is a really weird thing to be describing, I know. There's some nice citrus and some hints of rose blossom and tea that remind me a lot of Roku gin, though the frequent intensity of the sweetness reminds me more of Nolet's. I definitely get some licorice (not really a soft anise) and wormwood, but they are balanced very nicely. Aside from the sweetness, this profile is light for an absinthe, but I find it enjoyable. Combined with the sweetness, there's a bit of a light, spicy, floral fragrence to the palate that reminds me of Chartreuse Green in a surprising yet enjoyable way. F: ...Apparently, I forgot to take note of this at the time, but I recall it being essentially the palate plus more numbness. As a sipper, this is a heck of a lot better than Oregon Spirit and it's probably one of the easiest absinthes to enjoy. In a cocktail, I'm not as sure, but I imagine that it's at least serviceable. I compared it with both Roku and Chartreuse Green and I also contrasted it with Oregon Spirit's bitterness, so I think I need to rate it reasonably highly. It also compares favorably with Corsair Red. The Corsair has a richer, more regal essence to it, whereas this is fun and tasty. Corsair Red seems more likely to add class to a drink, but I'm not sure how often that will result in a better experience. On this other hand, this is more gin-like and has some more piercing flavors, which will stand up better in a a mixed drink. It won't add a rich, slightly savory underbelly, but it will get the floral, fruity, licorice, minty, and bitter points across just fine. I'm honestly not sure which is better as a mixer and I could go back and forth on sipping them. I'm inclined to give the nod to Mephisto right now, but that could change. This might be the most sippable absinthe I've yet found. It's a solid offering and I'd be happy to stock it on my bar shelf for mixing or (occasional and in small quantity) sipping. I'm thinking it's in the 12 to 15 range. Maybe a 16 if I'm really feeling generous. So, I've talked this up a bit and it's had an epic hero's journey from green alien goo to balanced, complex, sippable liquor. Let me bring it crashing down to Earth now, like an incompetent UFO. This is a really poor choice for general mixing. It lightens darker, richer, fuller spirits a lot and also has a tendency to apply a bit of sickly green hue. There may be some nice complexities in this, but the flavor and mouthfeel overall get watered down in bourbon and rye, with some mineral and other disappointing flavors failing to make up for what this takes away. A real disappointment in that regard. Should I lower the rating for that? I mean, it's unchanged in quality as a sipper, but maybe I was up-rating it a bit subconsciously under the hope that it would be a good general mixer as well? It is redeemed somewhat in gin though. With a clean, dry gin, it rivals Oregon Spirit. I also rate based on the best version of whatever I'm tasting (to be clear, not based on my palate (unless I can't properly correct), but based on how I can use it), so if it's better neat than in cocktails (or vice versa), that's OK - just buy it expecting to have it one way or the other. Using a somewhat better quality gin (Beefeater instead of Dover Strait), this enters an interesting tie with the others (Corsair and Oregon Spirit). The interesting outcome is that all 3 end up producing exaggerated versions of iconic gins: Ford's (Corsair), Beefeater (Oregon Spirit), and Roku (Mephisto). This is frankly a bit much as a Roku alternative when mixed with Beefeater, sort of getting into Nolet's exaggeration territory, but it's still quite good. I consider this bout to be a 3-way tie. There's no way around the green hue here though. Putting it in a gin-based drink definitely influences the flavor and it isn't a positive influence. I get that the green is a fun color, but it makes it difficult to work with, even in very small quantities. OK, so in a mix with Dover Straight (ugh, this again) and Noily Pratt Dry Vermouth, this works pretty well. The fruity and floral flavors are nice. The only problem is that they are a bit disconnected from each other. This is still a bit improvement over Oregon Spirit in this situation, but Corsair finally wins first place in this one. This still isn't a bad choice, but one needs to be looking for a drier, more floral and fruity character. And it still has this weird green-blue hue. This is an unfortunate outcome, but I'm going to have to take the neat rating for this. It's frankly bad for most cocktails. If I were rating it for cocktails, I would go with an 8 to 11. Yeah, it's tragic. For sipping, I was hovering around a 14 for the flavor, but I then leaned a bit more in the direction of a 13 when its underlying sort of watery flavor (which is the core of its problem in cocktails) hit me. I actually don't really mind it as a sipper beyond the tremendous numbing character, but it certainly doesn't enthuse me. That numbing character is a real problem for sipping though. It just takes a couple of sips before all of that complexity slips away. I think I need to go with either a 12 or 13, but I can still vaguely imagine a 14. I certainly wouldn't buy a bottle since I'd never have it outside of cocktails and it's not very good for cocktails.