I have a teeny-tiny obsession with absinthe. It started back in college – the liqueur was still illegal then – when a friend of the guy I was dating brought back a bottle from Prague. We had it in the classic college way. In other words, we poured a shot in a mug, put some sugar on a spoon, dipped the sugar in the absinthe, and lit that stuff on fire!
Pretty? Yes. Memorable? Yes. Palatable…eh, not so much.
But, it made me want to try absinthe again. So, when I was in Paris, it was my mission to find some good absinthe. I had no idea where to look until we came around the corner, and, lo and behold, saw this.
That’ll do. The store is incredible – former Chez Panisse pastry chef David Lebovitz agrees – and there, I picked up a small bottle of French absinthe. Which…I still haven’t opened, but I digress. Later that week, on my birthday, we found the absinthe bar of Paris and tried a whole host of different absinthes…my dreams were very strange that night.
Fast forward a few years and I am the very proud owner of a proper absinthe fountain and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting TA Breaux, the man (mostly) responsible for making “real” absinthe legal again.
So, recently, I decided to add absinthe cupcakes to our menu. The absinthe cupcake is a chocolate cupcake flavored with extracts of mint and anise, and it’s topped with an absinthe buttercream frosting and a hand-piped dark chocolate absinthe spoon. If you like licorice or mint, you’ll love them.
Cupcake Photos by Erik Knox