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Absinthe / Virgin America / Cocktails / In-Flight Drinks / → All Tags

How to Chase the Green Fairy On Virgin America

A few weeks back we mentioned that Virgin America would be serving Le Tourment Vert absinthe drinks in the sky. A few days after that announcement, we found ourselves on a flight back from Seattle, pondering the purchase of said drink. But since we know our go-to drink, chardonnay, can do the job and do the job well, we decided to skip the absinthe. However, our row mate decided to splurge on not one, but two Le Tourment Vert absinthe drinks.

According to the RED ordering system, you can pick your mixer to go with the green absinthe which arrives in a small bottle with a cork stopper. However, Le Tourment Vert suggests mixing the drink with Sprite and garnishing with a lemon wedge.

While the drink is 100 proof and includes traditional ingredients like grand wormwood, star anise, fennel, sage and eucalyptus, it's not going to make you see things that aren't really there (as Oscar Wilde once said.) Then again, after downing his drinks, our row mate did hop onto the Virgin in-flight WiFi to begin cruising his eHarmony.com love matches. Ah, there's nothing like liquid courage.

Le Tourment Vert is served gratis in First Class and Main Cabin Select and is available for $8 in economy class.

Related Stories:
· Chase the Green Fairy Onboard Virgin America [Jaunted]
· Le Tourment Vert [Official Site]

Travel Contests / Virgin America / Absinthe / Green Fairy / Cocktails / → All Tags

Chase the Green Fairy Onboard Virgin America

In the wake of this alleged swine flu pandemic, is it such a good idea to drink something historically associated with hallucinations and ear cutting while at 40,000 feet?

Virgin America thinks so! They're serving Le Tourment Vert Absinthe Francaise "the first absinthe in the sky."

The Mile High Absinthe Cocktails will be listed on all Virgin American flight menus. The airline is even hosting a contest with Flavorpill to celebrate the Green Fairy in the Sky. Cheers to the lucky passengers who win two tickets on the airline.

To win, tweet @Flavorpill plus your chosen city within the Virgin America network and a reason you'd love to travel there. Remember to tag your tweet #LTVabsinthe. Winners are notified on May 15, 2009.

Isn't it comforting to know that the pilot and crew feel they can confidently fly the friendly skies while passengers potentially see the Green Fairy aboard their flights? Buckle up!

Related Stories:
· Virgin America Coverage [Jaunted]

Embedded Travel Guides / Japan Travel / Osaka Travel Guide / Bars / Nightlife / Absinthe / Osaka-Embed-Map / → All Tags

Jaunted Embedded Travel Guides: Osaka After Dark

Embedded Travel Guides: We are searching the world for folks who can take you on a field trip of their "backyard." When we find these folks, we then stealthy embed them into their local travel scene and ask them to be our eyes and ears out in the field.

We are expecting the same sort of grainy video, choppy sentences and snapshot photos that you are use to seeing from other sorts of embeds. At the end of the day we should be left with a backyard travel guidebook like no other.

Our man in Osaka is AJ McGuire, and, wow, does he have stories to tell.

Nightlife in Osaka will teach you what your Learn Japanese in 24 Hours tape couldn't. While there are enough foreigner bars to stay in an English-language bubble and still have a decent Saturday night (some of my friends have been doing this for years), it's a far better thing to let the drink drop those inhibitions and push you to trot out some phrasebook communication. You won't regret it.

A good starter while you're still lucid and timid is the cozy Gorkha Bazar, a Nepalese bar and grill that serves as a hangout for the multilingual and a more diverse crowd of gaijin than the usual crop of English teachers. Barman Diwarker Thapa speaks four languages, and the happy hour plate is the best value in town for pre-booze munchies. And it's convenient to the Tani-9 zone of love hotels so Gorkha might be your last stop of the night, too.

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Prague / Alcohol / Absinthe / → All Tags

It's Not Easy Being Green

Is Czech absinthe improving? It certainly can't get any worse. As the Czechs never had the ban on the green liquor that swept across the rest of Europe and the U.S. at the beginning of the 1900s, quite a few manufactures tried to cash in on the name during the 90s with kitschy brands. What they distilled was hardly authentic absinthe--hence the term Czechsinthe--it was closer to a green Windex. And that's being kind to the flavors involved.

Czech absinthes are heavy on wormwood, which was the ingredient that many thought caused absinthe's hallucinogenic properties; recent studies have shown that not be the case. Which is a pity, since beyond the purported visions, all wormwood adds is a bitter flavor.

It's not all bad. Toulouse Lautrec Absinthe is the best of the new bunch of Czech absinthes. It's not made in the classic old style, which was the subject of a recent New Yorker article, and is near impossible to do successfully, but the "flavor profile" is a close as Czech absinthes get. So the next time you're in Prague and absinthe is what everyone asked for you to bring home, that's the one you should grab at the Duty- Free. Cheers.

[Image via Sevensven/Flickr]

Related Stories:
·   Worthy of their Name [Prague Post]