Absinthe Makes The Heart Grow Fonder

welcome to this episode of the wolf and

the shepherd today

we're going to be talking about absinthe

absent that makes the heart grow fonder

now

before we get started there's one thing

that i do want to add and i want to add

it right up here in the front of the

podcast

because we're kind of lazy and so if it

ever comes out where i've got to edit

this

i just want to put it in the front but

we do not have an official

absence sponsor so if you're interested

in being an absent sponsor

please get a hold of us and lucid

if you were listening i would like you

to be our absent sponsor because you're

my favorite absinthe

oh currently okay good call there yeah

all right so now that we're

done with business yeah let's talk about

absent yeah absinthe

also known as the green fairy yep just

like the incredible hulk's brother who's

into broadway show tunes oh really yeah

he's the green fairy we'll say

it's too bad he doesn't have that many

appearances in the movies and everything

well then a bit embarrassed of him a bit

like you remember when scooby-doo they

had to get rid of scrappy do because of

the rains

well that's true yeah lots of backlash

yeah can you imagine

if scrappy doo would have came out today

with like twitter and everything else

he would have been canceled probably

after two episodes

i hate him i didn't talk about him ever

again yeah

podcast yeah let's not bring this down

absinthe

absence now for those of you who don't

know what absinthe is

i recommend you go out and buy some find

yourself a blacked out kind of like four

or five days where you don't have

anything going on

and just sit back and enjoy it right

yeah but

we also need to mention only go out and

buy it if you're of legal age to

purchase it yeah

otherwise you're gonna have to steal it

right we don't want to absolutely

advocate stealing right absinthe

right right other things other things

yeah that you could share yeah we're

okay with that

sharing is caring yeah especially in

digital format

exactly if mp3 mp4

right yeah yeah we miss you napster

yeah so anyway absinthe it's an

anise which i think um the full name

comes from like aniseed or something

which is kind of licoricey

it's an east flavored spirit derived

from plants including flowers and leaves

of wormwood which together

with uh green and east sweet fennel and

other medicinal and culinary herbs are

put together

and they make absence from it why do

english people

pronounce the h in herbs herbs

yeah herbs i don't know they didn't

explain it when they first introduced us

to the words

well somebody there was some stand-up

comedian that had a whole bit about it

but

it's kind of weird how in america we

call it herb

but in britain it's herb which is the

way it's spelled

so i got to give the english that part

but yeah then as you're

you know going over this you said herb

yeah

you threw me off i thought you were

talking about some dude that was living

in the trailer park down the way from

the studio yeah

but then the americans also messed up

with calling arkansas

arkansas when our kansas was there for

the taking

that's true yeah that's true so anyway

those ingredients

it sounds like a lot of unnecessary

information all you really need to know

about absinthe have you not been

familiar with it in the past is it's

green and it will mess you up really

quickly

right yeah now have you had abstinence

before i have multiple times yeah now

you actually had it in europe as well

didn't you no i've never been to europe

oh that's another dream which wasn't

true right

right now i know we make a lot of stuff

up but yeah

my trip to europe hadn't happened yet

now by the next podcast

maybe i backpacked in europe through

college yeah

now ironically it was probably absinthe

which gave me that dream that you'd

actually had absinthe in europe

that could be true and if i have some

absence later on tonight maybe i'll

remember my backpacking trip through

yeah

now what did you think of absence when

you at it the very first time i had

absinthe was at a buddy's house uh rest

in peace stephen bigelow

and so uh went over to his house and

i had always heard about absinthe and

found out that i could

actually go buy it so when we bought it

we

bought the bottle and it came with the

absinthe spoon and i know we're

gonna get into that later on so i won't

let that go and we bought the sugar

cubes and i thoroughly enjoyed it

nobody else liked it so fast forward

to the only other time i've had it i had

it in a little

kind of makeshift speakeasy in utah used

to be a speakeasy now of course it's

not a speakeasy anymore but they kind of

kept that speakeasy feel

and had a really good experience with

the absent there i'm pretty sure the

absent i had in utah versus what i

bought

because you know me i bought the

cheapest bottle i could find

i'm pretty sure the absinthe i had in

utah this little speakeasy was some

pretty good stuff

yeah now even the cheapest absence is

still pretty expensive

true you know well and yeah when i saw

the prices on it

obviously i went for the cheapest bottle

yeah you need to decide to treat

yourself if you are indeed going to

invest and here come the police now we

don't mean it about

stealing downloads can you hear it can

you hear

me are they passing okay good good

uh thank you to the fort worth police

for watching out for crime uh we

we are not advocating crime uh we we

know that there is absolutely no

possible way you're hearing this right

now because we haven't put it on the

internet yet but

uh you never know what the government

maybe the fort worth police snuck in a

microphone in here maybe

and it could have happened yeah so i

thought to

cover the general public's views and

questions on absinthe

i should do what we normally do and

that's consult google

right and so i started typing in

absinthe then as usual the autocorrect

stuff

came up sure so i figured what i'll do

i'll take those

first five questions which is suggested

in autocorrect

run with them okay that'll probably give

a broad base of

information which they should really

blame on us no because we're just

repeating it so

as you type this in did you remember how

to spell absinthe

eventually yeah okay good but did google

help you out a little bit with that

well first of all when the suggestions

started coming up of why i should avoid

sex i realized i'd spell

absence wrong right yeah because that's

abstinence and that's oh

yeah the same thing apparently exactly

yeah i'm pretty sure it's not yeah

so first question why is absinthe so bad

actually that should put you at ease if

you're a little bit

hesitant in trying it yeah but why is

absence so bad i mean that could be

taken a couple of different ways

why is absence so bad as far as the

taste

right or why is absence so bad as in

what could it do to you

yeah yeah i wonder who was typing that i

wonder what they meant behind that

absinthe has often been portrayed as a

dangerously addictive psychoactive drug

and a lucid

which is why i went out and bought the

first bottle right

i think that line kind of convinced me i

need to go out and buy honestly i think

my first you know experience when i went

to buy it was

kind of along those similar lines it's

like oh wait this is supposed to do

this yeah and i can literally go down to

the store and buy this yeah okay

yeah let's try yeah it's a tuesday

there's any you know four more days of

work left including today

exactly yeah so the chemical compound

fusion

which i don't know if that's how it's

pronounced but that's what we're going

with

which is present in the spirit and trace

amounts was blamed for its alleged

harmful effects

so that is why absinthe is so bad

because of that fujian wow

it sounds like like a great kind of

super villain in the

avengers no that's exactly what i was

just thinking right now

is that it does sound like a comic book

villain yeah

maybe it is yeah although i'll probably

be cheering for him

yeah oh especially if he has anything to

do with absence

what if what if his sidekick is an

absinthe distiller

you know like batman has the bat cave

right so what if thujong

the super villain makes all his money

from selling absinthe and he's making it

like in the basement

yeah kind of like a meth lab yeah

but legal yeah legal you know that's the

only thing he does legal because he's

illegal amounts of fujian oh there you

go yeah because he is a super villain

not a superhero so yeah he's got to do

something bad

to get him started you know that makes

sense maybe he could drive a gas

guzzling vehicle or something to kind of

put a bad slant on him

true yeah uh marvel comics uh for

that we will accept uh cash of

what i don't know seventy two dollars uh

crate of absence

oh oh that's a good point yeah so second

question

is absinthe legal in the united states

it is indeed legal in the united states

and it has been legal in all states

since 2007

but it comes with the regulated fusion

levels

no kidding yeah so who's the thujong

tester

um maybe that's a career path we should

have went down

that yeah they've probably got through a

few of them because you can't work

consecutive days

sure not only that but if you're the

fusion tester

and then you find too much and you're

like oh

sorry nope this is no good and then you

take it home

yeah yeah people just want to work one

day three days off type chubs

it would that's a perfect work from home

job yeah it is

yeah because you can you know drink the

absinthe that

has too much fusion and then drop the

bottle

take a picture of the broken bottle and

just you know pour some water around and

say

sorry i i know this is my seventh bottle

that i broke this week

but uh yeah i wasn't able to test the

thujong levels in this one so you better

send me another one yeah

now at this point after the first two

questions people obviously started

getting worried so question number three

can absinthe kill you yes

yes it's now known that wormwood or at

least some varieties of it contain

fuzion which can indeed cause seizures

and death

but the alcohol in absence would kill

you long before you drank enough to get

the other effects

that sounds like one of those challenges

it sounds like another challenge

kids on tick tock oh yes this is

instead of trying to strangle yourselves

into your pass out

because a six occasion is not cool try

drinking

lots of absinthe yes yes uh the absinthe

challenge

challenge yeah sponsored by reebok

yeah right now i know this oh wait no

it's sponsored by nike

yes we don't like them are they yeah

sorry reebok

you got a raw deal on jerry mcguire for

that deal so what we'll let you slide

the absinthe challenge which would you

die

from quicker sponsored by nike yeah yeah

brilliant i love it so i know what about

75 percent of our listeners are thinking

at the moment

where can we buy large quantities of

wormwood and pure fusion

yes yeah so it would be irresponsible

for me honestly

it might be it might be 75 of our

listeners but it's 50

of the people recording this podcast

yeah sally because you've already done

the research that i already know

yeah so it would be responsible for me

to tell people

where they can get duzone from but you

can buy

wormwood on ebay and down and on amazon

and remember wormwood contains two zones

so

without putting two and two together for

people

if you want more fujian perhaps buy more

of the thing that contains the thujone

right yeah that reminds me of the uh

the deal it was back during the

prohibition

where there were guys that were selling

bricks

of grapes that were already dehydrated

or whatever

and on the instructions on the package

it said do not do the following

with this or you will create wine right

and so it was that

old just kind of get around it like they

called it a warning but they were

literally telling people how to take

this home and what to do to make their

own wine

yeah that always makes me laugh about

when they talk about any type of

psychoactive ingredient

in almost any product and they say um

oh it's regulated so if you only have

one of these you only get five percent

of this and it takes you know 12 percent

you know for it to have this effect it's

like

no way am i taking three that's right

yeah i i will definitely follow that

warning later yeah exactly it's

like yeah if you want to reach this

effect definitely don't take

three of them yeah it's kind of like you

know they say

you should not drink alcohol when you're

pregnant or

while operating heavy machinery i'd like

to see

a pregnant person drink a glass of

alcohol while

operating heavy machinery not that i

advocate

alcohol fetal syndrome or anything like

that yeah i just think that'd be funny

yeah

you don't see a lot of pregnant women

operating heavy machinery well you know

what it's like once they get pregnant

this is like any excuse to just sit on

their ass

no that's true yeah that's a good point

yeah chinese have got the right idea

mm-hmm yeah so how does absinthe make

you

feel that's question number four by the

way i'm not getting personal with a

shepherd there oh

okay so how does it make you feel so

people are confused about

what alcohol does or are they a little

bit confused because

absinthe and all the mystery behind it

well it is a little bit different i mean

i

well yeah i mean i have quite a lot of

lucid dreams as it is but on absinthe

you have extended dreams which seem to

last for hours upon

hours upon hours and then when you wake

up it takes about

20 or 30 minutes to kind of fully

convince yourself you're not still

dreaming i mean it really does have

effects

way past when the alcohol wears off

gotcha

oh that makes sense yeah yeah once again

you know that

they're saying there's nothing really

there but there's something

there definitely is i mean me and my

girlfriend we used to drink about half a

bottle each of it

and then take a walk around grapevine

lake here in north texas

about you know one o'clock or two

o'clock in the morning and yeah it would

mess with your head like every sight

every sound was amplified and oh

yeah it really gave you a uh kind of

freaky experience but

so what you're telling me is our buddy

frank kane

ought to go out on one of his bigfoot

hunts and drink some absinthe

first then he's going to find bigfoot so

frank we know you're listening

there's your assignment yeah you know

you need to do the big foot hunt that

you want to do

on absinthe yeah so the google

answers that question about how does

absence make you feel with

absence is an extremely potent liquor

believe which is

incorrect by the way it's not liquor

believed to cause hallucinations along

with intense euphoria

it's also believed to have other

dangerous consequences

such as those caused from acute alcohol

intoxication

well now when you say it's not a liquor

do you mean it's not a liqueur

yep oh okay yeah it do you pronounce

that word the same liqueur

in liquor nope oh you just misread it

yep okay that's my because i didn't put

the e on the end of it

the core is an e on the internet nah

it's in the middle somewhere

i think it still ends with an r does it

i'm pretty sure oh yeah yeah you might

be right

yeah yeah no well so big surprise that

it's actually from the alcohol

intoxication

right so question five you knew

eventually somebody was gonna ask this

will absinthe thought fujione

show up in a drugs test no you know what

that's a fair enough question first of

all we all know alcohol will show up in

a

urine test right yeah i mean most times

when you take a drug test they're not

really checking for that unless you're

like a truck driver got in an accident

and they want to send you off for that

right but thujone

yeah so i'm kind of curious well it's

structurally related to thc

but it won't show up and they can't tell

whether they've had absence or wormwood

it won't show up in any drugs test and

obviously the alcohol content will but

you can't tell that you specifically had

wormwood

you know fusion you know an absinthe on

it

oh that's interesting you know you

figured it would be if

if this douchum is so scary

right you'd think that would be on kind

of a list of drugs or whatever that you

would check somebody for

illegal it's illegal to actually sell

kind of like pure through

jones so i mean it's it's like a lot of

things i mean you know there's some

things which get

banned which are actually perfectly

legal i mean you know

athletes some athletes can't have too

much cough syrup

i can't have too much caffeine because

it's performance enhancing drug i don't

think

fujian can really be accused of being

performance enhancing probably the

opposite

right well it's like that poor horse

that won the kentucky derby last week

and then they tested him and he had too

much steroids

and it's a horse like he didn't have the

choice

so why are you taking this out on that

poor horse

do you think that horse took his little

hooves and said oh i want to shoot this

up

in my arm and make me stronger no it

wasn't the horse

it was his owners and everything else if

they had too much so

why why are you after the horse why are

you trying to be so mean to this horse

and it wasn't his fault

do you think his raging erect penis gave

the game away

that's a possibility yeah so i suppose

other than encouraging the audience to

go out and buy

some absinthe with their first available

uh

leftover the stimulus check um we

probably should add a little bit more

educational element to it just to let

people

know about absinthe where it came from

how long it's been about why people got

pissed and banned it

all right yeah okay yeah let's dive into

that yeah

so did you know that early forms of

absinthe or i think it's more kind of

drinkable wormwood then

actually goes back to biblical times no

yeah you're kidding yeah

i would have figured they'd be like

warning against it in the new testament

but it wasn't

right so absinthe was in the bible or

wormwood was in the bible well

it's made out of woman got you yeah okay

so they weren't making this made out of

it yeah

yeah i got you but so the bible's

basically talking about the wormwood

that's interesting yeah

well isn't there when they talk about

that comet in the sky

and with like the end of times isn't

that called like wormwood because it's

got something to do with bitter taste or

the

yeah snake no something like that no

that's in revelation

yeah it is called wormwood right yes and

it turns the water on the earth bitter

or something

right yeah yeah which basically uh

well i'm pretty sure when john was

riding that

you know on his little island there in

patmos kind of like on an island with

pat beeman

yeah but on an island st john at patmos

i wonder if he just didn't like black

licorice

well i wonder if he'd been drinking

absinthe because that would make a lot

more sense given some of the uh

imagery he used well not only died but

he could have you know

looked over and it's like yeah what do i

want to call this looks over his bottle

of absence he's like ah wormwood yeah

that's cool you know even the greatest

writers get writer's block

every now and then so maybe that's what

it was yeah despite being known as the

green fairy

absinthe can also be colorless really

i know both the times that i've had the

absent that i

by the way remember it was green it was

not clear yeah

i've never seen clear abs i think i

think someone's been trying to sell some

vodka and passing it off as some sense

oh like basically boosting up the price

and saying that

for something yeah that's smart

marketing

yeah it is it really is yeah so if if

that's what they're doing

more power to you keep it up yeah so um

just make sure your sponsor is nike

yeah so it's not traditionally bottled

with added sugar

which is why it's not a liqueur so

technically it's a spirit

yeah see that's how you spell occur

there oh yeah you spelt it right on this

piece yeah

amazing good for you yeah yeah well you

know why you spelled it wrong

because i copied it off that same

article which called it ill occur so

it's inaccurate

so they can't even spell what it was

there you go yes

let's blame others for our mistakes

unless they didn't mean that

it's a liquor as in oh yeah

maybe it could have been maybe yeah okay

we won't blame screw them

so we've learned something today then

admittedly it's about alcohol again but

it's a good start

yeah but you know that's a recurring

theme especially with a beer sponsor for

our podcast i mean yeah we

we're not afraid of alcohol so yeah

we're going to talk about it

did you know absinthe was given to

french troops in the 1840s to prevent

malaria

no kidding so this is you know pre

quinine

so i kind of wish i would have had some

absinthe with me when i

went to papua new guinea and got malaria

i wonder if that would have worked well

it sounds like it would kill covert then

as well because that

key component in the malaria medicine is

also that's

true winning stuff as well yeah all

right somebody call

q and tell them that uh

we did absolutely yeah uh please please

give us credit for that one

yeah well i mean i don't know what wars

the french were actually

involved in back in the 1840s but

you know giving them absence to prevent

malaria sounds suspiciously like me

pouring vodka into the cat's water dish

to prevent feline aids

but okay so follow me on this one

what if the absinthe led the french to

surrender all the time

because they didn't really know where

they were trey

yeah there might be we might need to do

some military history research

because i don't remember how many

battles the french lost

after whatever it was 1840 but but

that's kind of when the surrendering

started right yeah

you know i mean the the colonies they

called for france for help and he had

the french revolution

and then after that it i think it was

this period of time when they

started surrendering in battles well the

last decent thing they did before that

was helping us defeat the british

obviously in a yeah well no i mean it

was after that that was the french

revolution

so that was the last thing they did

right but they surrendered to themselves

oh that's a good point yeah yeah you

know in england they're called the

cheese eating surrender

monkeys that's a name for the french

cheese eating surrender monkeys

yeah that kind of rolls off the tongue

it does yeah i like that

so absinthe is approximately 50 stronger

than vodka so i think any of you people

out there who

smuggle hip flasks into certain

establishments it's quite obvious what

you should be

kind of smuggling in well that makes

total sense right i mean more bang for

your buck

so why not right so oscar wilde

once said of absinthe after the first

glass of absinthe you see things

you wish they were see things as you

wish they were

after the second you see them as they

are not

finally you see things as they really

are and that is the most horrible thing

in the world

that sounds a bit depressing yeah i

thought he was supposed to be all light

and gay

well not only that but now you got to be

saying to yourself

okay well there's definitely a cut-off

time for absinthe

right like you just can't continuously

drink it you gotta stop

which point you know that ol oscar there

is saying yeah hey

if you want to see things this way you

drink one two

but after two namaste it'd have been

better off having delta eight really

probably yeah i'd been happier i think

my g is also quote of

asking what difference is there between

a glass of absinthe

and a sunset well i'm named a few things

mate to be honest

well uh i don't think absinthe gives off

any light

but it can keep you warm and i'm pretty

sure you can't pour any on a solar panel

and get free electricity we don't know

that i'm actually waging that

that might be a possibility it could be

i mean

yeah if it's going to cure covet then

why not

provide free energy so i'm not going to

go through the recipe and procedure

right at the moment okay but

if anybody wants to know look it up on

google and it's pretty simple to

actually make your own absinthe because

you can buy the ingredients for it and

the process you don't need a

big laboratory or lots of space or

anything and so guess what we're going

to do this summer

oh i'm going to have an absinthe making

camp we're going to invite all the kids

from the local middle schools

they're going to come out they're going

to make abstinence

do we have some kind of contest of who

can make the best absinthe yeah

i mean and then what so like first prize

in this contest right

you know the the kids from the school

they come out they make the absinthe

first prize in the contest they get

their absinthe bottled under our label

right so now we had somebody else do the

work for

us now we have private label absinthe

and this kid just takes that as a reward

saying hey

i won this contest that this and then we

make all the money

selling the absinthe oh sounds like god

is angry with this idea

from the thunder which is just coming or

maybe that is uh

thor's next antagonist

though yeah oh that oh

see we know hollywood is running out of

ideas

but we don't need to be helping them

right now it's not like they're helping

us

now if hollywood wants to help us then

yeah you can have that idea

yeah now there was actually an

anti-absinthe

movement which started in europe and it

all started with this guy called john

lanfray you know it's like one of those

french names

it really says gene right it's

pronounced jean

well so basically what you're telling me

with this

is we found the first karen in the

modern century i mean

this guy must have went out there he

didn't start it

it was based upon something he did oh

yeah i i thought he started it

[Music]

okay but but before you go on though i

mean we are

at least talking about one of those

times in history where

you didn't need social media you didn't

need any of this there's going to be a

group

get behind some kind of movement no

matter what it is right

yeah that's where you're going with this

well i think they were just a bit bored

to be honest because

once you actually listen to the points

in it i don't know if it's enough to

start a whole movement but you know true

this is about

10 years 15 years away from the start of

world war one so they didn't really have

much else to do

yeah that was a boring yeah took their

mind off it

so the anti-absence movement started

when john lanfray from switzerland

murdered his entire family in 1905.

that doesn't say how many people are in

his family so i'm not sure whether i'm

supposed to be impressed or not but

right yeah so you caught me off guard

with that one because

i thought we were just talking about you

know somebody being upset

and starting this movement in this guy's

memory but yeah i didn't think we were

going to be talking about murder

right murder murder most foul

he claimed he didn't recall the events

because he was under the influence of

absinthe

his lawyers actually used absinthe

madness as his defense

the press dubbed it as the absinthe

murders ooh

the absinthe murder so that's what

started the movement right

so so you got the media involved right

and they put a spin on it and they say

hey

wasn't his fault blame it on the absence

yeah and then guess what

nobody can have their absence anymore

yeah that's terrible how we

spin certain things he was actually

found guilty though despite

that watertight defense well i just

found gateway

okay i thought he had been found

innocent

and then that's where the protest

started because okay

no i got you no he's found guilty and

then he hung himself in his prison cell

three days later unlike jeffrey epstein

true yeah so there was a petition which

started this

anti-absence movement and it said

absinthe makes you crazy and criminal

provokes epilepsy and tuberculosis and

has killed

thousands of french people how do you

get tuberculosis from

absinthe why don't i sounded very

similar to why california banned plastic

straws

down now that's a good point yeah so it

took about

95 years for the united states to

realize that claim

might be a little bit exaggerated and

was probably

ironically written by somebody who had

been drinking absinthe

no almost 100 years to

actually fact check a story yeah when i

mean today you put something on

the internet and it gets fact checked in

like two seconds yeah you know

somebody's

got something going with that so well

we encourage you if you are of legal age

of course to go out and try some

absinthe and

let us know what you think send us an

email and that will

do it for this episode of the wolf and

the shepherd we appreciate your support

and we will catch you on the next one

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