This describes a method for producing Absinthe (actual Absinthe, not merely tincture of Wormwood) from raw ingredients and tools commonly available. This method was described to me by a little bird who heard it from someone who did this experiment in international waters, disclaim disclaim. Seriously, though, don't attempt this unless it's legal (not that Absinthe is really high up on the DEA's list of worries; the truth is the stuff is so nasty that the abuse potential is probably fairly low). Furthermore, this method requires some degree of common sense, and in no way am I to be held responsible for your stupidity. This is for informational purposes *only* and should not be construed as any sort of suggested experiment. I. Original Recipie An article on Absinthe (Scientific American, June 1989, pp112-117) describes a recipie from Pontarlier, France: "Macerate 2.5kg of dried wormwood, 5kg of anise, and 5kg of fennel in 95L of 85% ethanol by volume. Let the mixture steep for at least 12 hours in the pot of a double boiler. Add 45L of water and apply heat; collect 95L of distillate. To 40L of the distillate, add 1kg of Roman wormwood, 1kg of hyssop and 500g of lemon balm, all of which have been dried and finely divided. Extract at a moderate temperature, then siphon off the liquor, filter and reunite it with the remaining 55L of distillate. Dilute with water to produce approximately 100L of absinthe with a final alcohol concentration of 74% by volume." Since distillation of 45L of anything is probably beyond the means or needs of most people, this document describes the scaling down of this recipie to produce 1L of final product. The results of this experiment are given for informational and entertainment value only. I do not recommend trying this experiment (which, incidentally, produces a product suspected to cause brain damage). The recipie, rewritten for scale and commonly available glassware, and starting with 95% EtOH (Everclear or other pure grain alcohol product), was then: Macerate 25g wormwood, 50g anise, and 50g fennel (all finely divided) in 950mL 85% EtOH (made by diluting 850mL 95% EtOH with 100mL distilled H2O) in a 2L round bottom flask. (Note: no heat was specified for extraction; however, heating to 50C was not found to adversely affect the results). Add 450mL distilled H2O. Setup for straight distillation and apply heat; collect 950mL distillate. Separate off 400mL distillate, add 10g Roman wormwood, 10g hyssop, 5g lemon balm, and extract at 60 C for 12h (note: reflux was also found to work adequately). Filter and reunite with the remaining 550mL and dilute to produce 1L of final product. Not much better. Thus, the recipie was adapted to materials available to most people. II. Tools and materials The following tools and materials can be used to construct a distillation apparatus: 1) A 500mL heat-resistant, round bottom flask with a #7 one-hole stopper. This is probably the most crucial thing needed. Since the flask is immersed in hot oil for distillation, heat-resistant glass is absolutely necessary. 500mL Pyrex (or equivalent heat-resistant glass) flasks are available from various hobby stores. Erlenmeyer (flat-bottom, conical shape) flasks are alternatively available. Larger sizes are better; smaller than 500mL is not recommended. However, as the flask will have to fit into an oil bath on a hot plate, it can't be too large. Stoppers are available both from hobby stores and (more easily) from hobby beer and wine brewing supply stores. One suggestion was relayed from a reader regarding a replacement for a 500mL flask (which is unavailable in some areas of the US due to authorities' paranoia about methamphetamine manufacture). This reader suggested using an *unused* champagne bottle (available from brewing supply stores), wrapped in a plastic sheath to prevent flash vaporization of boiling alcohol if the bottle breaks. The plastic sheath used was clear heat-shrink plastic tape, although several layers of plastic oven bags have also been suggested. The plastic used should be transparent and capable of withstanding heated oil. Incidentally, this suggestion is probably not particularly safe. If the glass breaks and punctures the plastic sheath, the alcohol could escape, vaporizing on contact with the oil and spattering hot oil, and explosive alcohol vapors, everywhere. If you must do this, place the entire distillation apparatus behind a hard plastic shield, or (even better) outside. And make sure there are no sources of ingnition (open flames, sparking electrical switches, thermostats, etc). 2) A 500mL (or larger) receiving vessel Heat isn't an issue here so that while a beaker was used, a clean drinking glass (rinsed in distilled water and allowed to dry) would also have been OK. 3) 2m (6') of 3/4" vinyl tubing This clear tubing is available at hardware stores. It tends to kink if bent too sharply, and also tends to flatten a bit, but otherwise is quite suitable for making a cooling jacket. Cut it with any utility knife. 4) Two 3/4" plastic tubing tees These tees are intended for the above vinyl tubing and have ridges to grip the tubing in place. The vinyl tubing should fit tightly onto the tees (don't push too far on to check or you'll get stuck). Local hardware stores should carry these. 5) One 3/4" plastic tubing to 1" utility faucet adapter This is a little plastic gadget that has a male fitting on one end (to go to the plastic tubing) and a threaded female fitting on the other end which fits onto utility faucets (the kind that washing machine hose goes into). Again, a hardware store item. 6) One 2" long 1" threaded nipple A "nipple" is plumbing-speak for a short piece of pipe with male threads at both ends. This short section of iron pipe, available at hardware stores, will screw into the above adapter (#5) and then into the washing machine hose (#7). 7) One washing machine hose, female fittings on both ends Cannabalize from a washing machine or buy a new one. Again, this should have 1" utility faucet fittings at both ends. 8) 1m (approx 3') 3/8" OD flexible copper tubing This copper tubing, available at hardware stores, is flexible but must be bent with the use of a tubing bending spring (also available at a hardware store, it looks like a slightly floppy spring). Once it gets kinked you're out of luck. Get about three feet. 9) Tubing bending springs A set costs about US $5 at a hardware store. Fairly easy to use; just slide onto the copper tubing and then bend with the center of the curve under the spring. The spring keeps the tubing from collapsing. 10) Silicone sealant glue Get whatever's cheapest. Food grade isn't necessary since it won't be touching the distillate. It should be rated to 250C (most are). 11) Hot plate You don't need anything fancy here; a cheap one from a department store will be just fine. If it doesn't have a thermostat you can add one later (see below). If it *does* have a thermostat, you might want to replace it anyway to prevent sparking. 12) Large, shallow metal cooking pot Aluminum, steel, whatever. Should be large enough to hold the bottom half of the flask in oil, but should be small enough to sit on the hot plate without tipping over. 13) Peanut oil You can use other oils, but peanut oil seems to hold up better to higher temperatures. 14) Extension cord Get one rated to handle the hot plate wattage. You can regulate the temperature by plugging and unplugging the extension cord from a distance, thus avoiding the potential for spark ignition in case any alcohol fumes escape. 15) Boiling stones Don't bother buying these. Get a piece of unglazed ceramic and break it into little bits. Voila -- boiling stones. Don't reuse these, incidentally, they don't stand up well to extensive use. Optional Equipment: 16) Triac motor speed controller You can get this gadget (intended to control the speed of overhead fans) from a hardware store or electrical supplier, and it should be rated for at least the wattage of the hot plate. This device (which will set you back about US $15) makes an excellent power controller for the hot plate, doesn't generate any sparks, and provides a smoother adjustment than traditional thermostats. Highly recommended. 17) Wire nuts Get an assorted package from the hardware store. These are little conical-shaped plastic nuts which are used to join wires together. III. Construction 1) Adding a triac thermostat (optional but recommended) NOTE: These instructions are fairly basic but you should have some knowledge of electrical wiring. If you don't, find someone to help you. Also, this is for US power only, I don't know much about European wiring. Remove the triac controller from its packaging (which should contain wiring instructions). Cut the extension cord about 3' from the plug end. Strip off 3" of the outer insulation from each side. Strip off 1/4" to 3/8" of insulation from the wires -- there should be three on each side: black (hot), white (neutral), and green (ground) (OK, neutral isn't the proper term, I know. Don't get me started on grounding vs. grounded conductors). Twist together the exposed copper portion of the green (ground) wires with a wire nut. Tape around it with electrical tape. Follow the instructions on the triac speed controller for the hot and neutral. Typically you will splice together the two neutrals and place the triac between the two hot wires. Use wire nuts and twist tightly, then tape over with electrical tape to seal everything. You can test this contraption by plugging an electric light into the socket of the extension cord, plugging the extension cord into a wall socket, and dimming the light with the triac. 2) Constructing the condensor This is the heart of the apparatus. Start with a 1' (30cm) long piece of 3/4" vinyl tubing. Place a tee on either end with the tee sides perpendicular to the tubing, one up and one down, as shown in this top view: Tubing ----. | | | v ___| |___---------------------------------_________ Tee --> _________ ___ ___ <-- Tee --------------------------------- | | | | Push in the tees as far as they will go. Now, take a straight piece of flexible copper tubing, about 2' (60cm) long, and insert it straight through the tees and vinyl tubing so that it protrudes equally from both sides. Hold the tubing/tees in front of you, level, so that the tee on the left points up and the tee on the right points down (just like in the figure above). Now, rotate it so that the left tee points away from you and the right points towards you (the vinyl tubing will still be parallel to the ground). Using a tubing spring, bend the copper tubing down 120 degrees on the left, 60 degrees on the right: Tee facing Tee facing towards you Vinyl tubing away from you \ / \ / __________------------ ---------------__________ _______/__\_______________ _____________________________ / _____| __ |______________ ____________________________ \ | | ___\__/___ __________ \ \ \ \ ------------ --------------- \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ <-- copper tubing copper tubing --> \ \ 120 degree angle 60 degree angle Now, place silicone glue into the ends of the tees around the copper tubing to make a seal (squirt it in, but not so much it clogs the side openings of the tees). Wait 24 hours for the glue to dry. Place the rubber stopper over the 120 degree angle end of the copper tubing so that about 1/2" protrudes below the stopper. This will go into the pyrex flask. The other end will simply sit above or in the receiving vessel. When in use, the condenser will be slanted downward at 30 degrees (so the two ends of the copper tubing are vertical). 3) Adding water inlet and outlets The water inlet goes on one end, the outlet on the other. Since efficiency isn't that much of an issue here, it doesn't really matter which end is which. For the sake of argument, let's say the water inlet goes on the distillation flask end and the water outlet goes on the receiving flask end. To make the water inlet, cut off a short piece of vinyl tubing, and push it onto the inlet tee. Push the adapter (item #5) onto the other end of the short piece of vinyl tubing. Screw the nipple into the adapter, and then the washing machine hose into the nipple. To make the outlet, just stick the remaining tubing onto the other tee, and let the other end sit in the drain. 4) Testing for leaks Place the entire thing in the sink. Hook up the washing machine hose to a utility faucet, and turn it on *gently* (you don't need to fill up the jacket with water, just a smooth, gentle flow). Check for leaks, and seal any with silicone glue (after it's dry, of course). 5) Making a support You will need to construct some sort of support for this contraption. Place the hot plate on a flat surface, put the cooking pot on the hot plate, and the distilling flask in the cooking pot. The rubber stopper should fit tightly into the flask, with the condenser sloping about 30 degrees downward so that the flasks are vertical. Incidentally, it helps not to put the distilling flask directly onto the cooking pot. Instead, put a few small flat strips of wood on the bottom of the pot and place the flask onto those. A good solid support can be constructed using thin pieces of steel or aluminum with regular holes for screws. You can buy this at a hardware store. Or, you can get everything you need in an Erector Set [tm], along with brackets, bolts and nuts, angle irons, etc., i.e., everything you need to make a stable, usable support. Even Tinkertoys [tm] can be used (with suitable wood glue) in a pinch. Whatever you do end up making, make sure it's solid. The flask will probably bump a bit until you get the hang of controlling the heat, and you don't want the contraption to fall apart. Try bending the support around at various angles to make sure it's stable. Once you're sure, tighten down all the screws and consider epoxy to fix everything in place. IV. Test run A test run is highly recommended. You can use cheap, 80 proof vodka for the trial (and incidentally, this is a good way to get 190 proof alcohol if you can't buy it). Fill the distilling flask 1/3 full with vodka, and drop in a few boiling stones (make sure they're roughly uniform size, about the size of green peas). Place the flask into the pot on the hot plate, and fill the pot with peanut oil to about 1/4 to 1/3 up the flask. Place the rubber stopper into the flask, and make sure everything is stable. Attatch the water inlet to the faucet, and place the water outlet into the drain. Turn on the water *first*. You just need a slow, smooth stream of water, almost a trickle. If you adjust the water flow right, you will see a ribbon of water flowing through the condensor, hanging between the copper tubing and the bottom of the vinyl tubing. Make sure you have plenty of ventilation and all open flames are extinguished. This includes water heater and furnace pilot lights. Now, plug in the hot plate and crank it up to about 75% full heat. Wait (it takes a long time) until bubbles start to form around the boiling stones. Turn the heat down so that it continues to heat slowly. Eventually, you should see alcohol vapors start to form on the walls of the flask and condense back down -- this is called "reflux". Tweak the heat up a bit until the vapors start to rise into the condensor. You should begin to see drops of alcohol form on the tip of the copper pipe at the receiving vessel, which should then increase until you get about two or three drips per second. If you have trouble getting out of reflux you may want to wrap the flask partially in aluminum foil. Leave a fairly wide strip open up the flask so you can see inside. Oh, and don't try to do this while the oil is still hot. You can also turn up the heat, but don't turn the heat up too much or you *will* blow liquid into the condensor and ruin the whole batch. When you get down to a nearly empty flask (which may take an hour or two), turn off the heat. Let the water flow continue until the flask and oil are cool. The distillate should smell sweet (commercial alcohol has a somewhat sharper smell due to oxidization products) and should catch fire easily (do this in another room, over a sink, with a small quantity in a spoon). V. Product Run OK, it's time to try this out for real. Take 25g of dried wormwood, 50g anise, and 50g fennel, and place into a coffee grinder, food processor, or blender. Chop until finely divided. Take 850mL of pure grain alcohol (Everclear, or the product of the above trial run) and dilute with 100mL of distilled water to produce 950mL of 85% EtOH. Place half of the chopped herbs and half of the ethanol solution into a blender, and blend for 5 minutes. Pour out the resulting gunk into a glass pitcher or glass cooking pot. Repeat with the other half of the herbs and ethanol solution. Scrape out any remaining gunk from the blender into the pitcher. Place the pitcher into a hot water bath (make sure it doesn't tip over) and let it sit for at least 12 hours, stirring occasionally. Add 450mL of distilled water. In all likelihood you will need to distill this mixture in several parts, unless you have a large enough flask (never fill the distilling flask more than 1/3 full or so). When you do divide it out, try to keep the herbal material well suspended, or you will end up with a huge glob of herbal material on your final run. Measure how much you put into the flask, you will want to collect 2/3 of that volume in distillate (e.g., if you put in 300mL of mixture, collect 200mL of distillate; if you distill all 1.4L of mixture, collect 950mL distillate). Place a portion of the mixture into the distilling flask. Clean off the neck of the flask and get ready for distillation. Drop in a couple of boiling stones (not quite so critical since you have solids in the mixture, but still a good idea). Assemble the apparatus, turn on the water, and start heating *gently*. For the first 30 minutes or so, nothing will happen. Eventually you will see some activity starting. Continue heating gently until you start to get output in the receiving flask. At first it will probably have no smell, but eventually you will start to catch the odor of the fennel. As distillation continues, you will probably notice soapy bubbles start to form in the flask. Try to keep the heat low enough that these bubbles don't begin to blow over into the condenser, although a certain amount is hard to avoid (you can filter out any blown-over solids later). Towards the end of the distillation you'll probably have to crank up the heat a bit. The thujone and other oils should come over last, and you'll know them because if you let the receiving end of the condenser sit over a glass of water for a moment or two, the drops will form cloudy rings in the water. When you've collected about 2/3 of what you put in, stop the heat and let everything cool down (don't turn off the water until everything is cool). Avoid letting the herbs char in the flask; if you don't get a full 2/3, don't worry. Dump out the contents of the flask and refill with the next batch. If you really want to squeeze out the last bit of thujone you can keep the used contents in a container and then do an extra run with them (add a little distilled water), but this can lead to a burnt taste in the final product (which already tastes bad enough as it is), not to mention all sorts of nasty oils you probably don't want. Finally, when all is said and done, you should have 950mL or so of clear to slightly cloudy liquid which smells sharply of anise and fennel and tastes extremely bitter. No, it won't be green yet. VI. Final Stages Take 10g Roman wormwood (hard to find, try herbal supply stores; if all else fails you can use regular wormwood), 5g lemon balm, and 10g hyssop, and chop until finely divided in a food processor or coffee grinder. Add 200mL distillate and blend *gently* until you have a mushy suspension. Pour out the mixture into a glass container, and rinse out the blender with another 200mL distillate, adding that to the container as well. Place this container in a hot water bath (60 C or so) for 24 hours, stirring occasionally. It should turn a deep emerald green. Filter this through two coffee filters back into the remaining 550mL of distillate, and dilute with distilled water to make 1L of final product. VII. Presentation and additional ideas If you want to add flavoring ingredients, you can do so in step VI with the lemon balm, hyssop, and Roman wormwood, but don't expect to do much to improve the taste. Absinthe is excruciatingly bitter. To see the stuff in action, fill a small glass about 1/3 full with Absinthe. Put a sugar cube into a strainer (or use an Absinthe spoon if you can find one -- look in antique stores for a flat slotted spoon), and gently pour water over the sugar cube. The Absinthe should change from green to a milky yellow-to-chartreuse liquid. I suppose you could actually *drink* the stuff now but that's not advised. Resist the temptation, it's not worth the effort. The evidence of neurotoxicity is in my opinion somewhat suspect, but if you really want to get a buzz there are better, easier, and more tasty ways out there (just ask Alice B. Toklas). From all accounts actually getting any interesting effects from Absinthe requires you drink a lot of it over a fairly long period of time, which takes a cast iron stomach and a lot of determination. Once again I remind you this is for informational purposes only. Don't try this at home, kids. Furthermore I explicitly disclaim any involvement with this, it never happened, it's just a thought experiment. The distillation rig can be used for any number of other things, ranging from perfumery to making your own hooch (very illegal, of course). Avoid trying to use it on anything reactive, or the copper tubing will become troublesome. In other words, don't try to make crank or you'll probably end up with some toxic green mess.