La Fée Verté in the guise of glide! What a concept!
Wait, it gets better. Archie McPhee has an entire page of weird little absinthe items on their site. The mints and gumballs seem a bit weird. But not as weird as absinthe lip balm! Although, the absinthe I've tried had an anise flavour and was fairly sweet (I can't imagine adding sugar to it).
Absinthe in the fin de siècle (19th, not late 20th century revival) was supposed to be fairly bitter hence the sugar. There is one painting of someone sucking a cork to get rid of the taste. I think the recent versions are not a noxious as what I've heard was in absinthe ancienne mixtures. Of course, that was before the pure food and drug movement.
I have to admit to drinking the stuff, but never more than a glass a pop. And it wasn't as exciting as this clip from Moulin Rouge
Kylie as tinkerbell on acid, which just happened to be the best part of the film.
She's not too bad as Little Red Riding Hood either!
Although, the write ups for Absinthe tend to be a bit of puffery. Such as this from Oscar Wilde:
"The first stage is like ordinary drinking, the second when you begin to see monstrous and cruel things, but if you can persevere you will enter in upon the third stage where you see things that you want to see, wonderful curious things." "Absinthe has a wonderful colour, green. A glass of absinthe is as poetical as anything in the world. What difference is there between a glass of absinthe and a sunset?"
The funniest depiction of Absinthe is in Black Books when Manny Bianco is locked in the store and drinks a whole bottle of absinthe in The Big Lock-Out
"Let me be mad, mad with the madness of Absinthe, the wildest, most luxurious madness in the world."--Marie Corelli
