Absinthe Hommage

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Absinthe Hommage is a verte intended as an homage to the classic Pontarlier-style absinthes. A simple recipe where the ingredients really shine: outstanding Pontarlier wormwood, good coloration, and a strong louche. 

This is a great choice both for people new to absinthe and aficionados who are in the mood for a  glass of something classic yet affordable enough to drink every day.

L'Italienne Blanche is available from Assenzioriginale:

https://www.assenzioriginale.it/en/shop/absinthe-green-homage/

Over the years,  many people have asked Stefano Rossoni to create a blanche absinthe.  He decided to create not just one, but two. L'Italienne Blanche is a blanche version of the famous L'Italienne Verte. While retaining the unmistakable identity of L'Italienne, this blanche reveals a distinctive aromatic profile: the absence of  coloring herbs allows different flavors to take center stage, giving them greater depth and complexity.

With its creamy louche, full body, and perfect balance,  L'Italienne Blanche can be savored alone or side by side with its corresponding verte to discover how the coloring herbs influence the final flavor. Perfect for enthusiasts and connoisseurs, it represents an authentic interpretation of traditional blanche absinthe.

L'Italienne Blanche is available from Assenzioriginale:

https://www.assenzioriginale.it/en/shop/absinthe-litalienne-blanche/

La Grenouille Blanche is a blanche version of the famous  La Grenouille Verte.  While maintaining the  unmistakable identity of La Grenouille, this blanche version has a unique aromatic profile: the absence of coloring herbs allows different flavors to take center stage, giving them greater depth and complexity.

With  its perfect balance, dense and silky mouthfeel, and refined structure,  La Grenouille Blanche is ideal to both savor alone or in comparison with its matching Verte to discover how the coloring herbs influence the final taste profile.  Perfect for enthusiasts and connoisseurs, it represents an authentic interpretation of traditional blanche absinthe.

La Grenouille Blanche is available from Assenzioriginale:

https://www.assenzioriginale.it/en/shop/assenzio-la-grenouille-blanche/

L'Ancienne Private Reserve is a special edition of Stefano Rossoni’s world renowned L'Ancienne and the first modern absinthe to be distilled with a pre-phylloxera wine base.

Stefano discontinued commercial production in 2014 but has continued to work tirelessly over the years to improve every aspect of his most prestigious absinthe. Ten years later, L'Ancienne returns as a Private Reserve edition: the base is a distillate of Prié Blanc, an heirloom grape variety grown exclusively in the cities of Morgex and La Salle in Valle D'Aosta. Thanks to the altitude and isolation of these areas, the vines were never affected by phylloxera and were never hybridized with American grapes. Prié Blanc is also related to other ancient grape varieties from the Alpine region, so it's the best fit for something inspired by 1800s absinthes.

The green anise is a very rare variety (less than 50kg are produced per year) that comes from the town of Castignano in central Italy, where it has been grown for centuries from heirloom seeds. This anise is sweeter, more complex, and fruitier compared to modern anise varieties.

Instead of common fennel, this Private Reserve L'Ancienne uses Florence fennel, the most prized variety since the1800s for its sweetness and creaminess, which was custom grown for Stefano and hand selected to ensure the highest quality. The wormwood is of the "Pontarlier" variety, also custom grown and hand selected.

L’Ancienne Private Reserve was distilled in a very limited batch of only 72 bottles. The first 36 bottles hand signed by Stefano can be pre-ordered here:

https://www.assenzioriginale.it/en/shop/absinthe-lancienne-private-reserve/

There are a few barrel aged absinthes on the market. Some are blanche absinthes with a strong barrel aging that are meant to be consumed pure. Others are regular verte absinthes just with a background of barrel notes. I wanted to make something different. I drew my inspiration from Bourbon where instead of already used barrels, the distillate is aged in new, charred American oak barrels. Additionally, I wanted to make something that on one hand had the American oak barrel notes being the main star of the show, but at the same time was very versatile and worked well both diluted with ice cold water (which is my preference and I like it in particular at 1:1.5) and sipped pure on the rocks or used in a cocktail. 

The result is La Brune: a verte absinthe aged in new American oak barrels and bottled at 55% to ensure that it could be as versatile as possible. I developed it to feature the oak barrel notes upfront, with a solid background of anise, wormwood and fennel, and more delicate herbaceous notes from the coloration to complement the oak but not overpower it. 

La Brune is available from Assenzioriginale:

https://www.assenzioriginale.it/en/shop/brown-absinthe/

After having drawn the inspiration for L'Italienne and La Grenouille from Italian landscapes (flower-blanketed rolling hills and Mediterranean islands), I decided that I would create a trilogy of absinthes, all very different but all following the same philosophy and that the third would be inspired by the Alpine forests in Northern Italy.


I started working on La Montagneuse shortly after finishing La Grenouille in 2008. I envisioned a recipe that would offer different layers of balsamic notes, a background of secondary notes including some earthy tones, lower fennel content compared to L'Italienne and La Grenouille, and a robust coloration to complete the profile with some herbaceous notes. Unfortunately, some of the wild harvested Alpine ingredients I wanted to use were extremely hard to find and as all of you know, I refuse to produce an absinthe under my name if I cannot ensure that I have at my disposal the best quality ingredients. So, after a few early prototypes that project was put on ice... until 2022!


Last year I finally found a source for those rare and expensive Alpine ingredients so I immediately restarted the project, excited that after more than 10 years I could finally complete my absinthe trilogy. In September 2022 I resumed the absinthe distillation, running prototypes, testing all the new ingredients, adjusting the recipe, etc. I also gave the prototypes enough months of aging to ensure that the absinthe would age well and achieve the balance I wanted. 

Finally, in June 2023 I settled on the final version of the recipe and started the absinthe production for the commercial release. La Montagneuse provides something new and different compared to the previous two absinthes while still fitting perfectly within the philosophy underlining the trilogy. Due to the scarcity of the wild harvested ingredients, the production of La Montagneuse is limited and will only be distilled if all the correct ingredients are available. 

La Montagneuse is available from Assenzioriginale:

https://www.assenzioriginale.it/en/shop/absinthe-la-montagneuse-limited/

Following the theme started with L'Italienne, I developed the La Grenouille recipe as an homage to the Mediterranean climate and landscape of the southern and island regions of Italy. La Grenouille is a warm, smooth, easily approachable absinthe with exotic and Mediterranean flavor notes. The name "Grenouille" has nothing to do with frogs; instead it refers to the "easy girls" who, during the summer, were a common sight on the banks of the Seine river in Paris in the late 1800s. After being discontinued for several years, La Grenouille is back in production in Italy. 

La Grenouille is available from Assenzioriginale:

https://www.assenzioriginale.it/en/shop/absinthe-la-grenouille/

When I started working on the L'Italienne recipe I decided that I wanted to create a floral, delicate, decadent absinthe inspired by the historic Premier Fils brand. I started experimenting with different herbs and flowers including some rare and unusual ingredients. I focused on achieving a perfect balance of extremely complex floral and elegant notes supported by the classic backbone of wormwood, anise, and fennel. I envisioned this absinthe as an homage to the meadows and rolling hills that surround my hometown in Northern Italy. 

L'Italienne is available from Assenzioriginale:

https://www.assenzioriginale.it/en/shop/litalienne-absinthe-2/

L’Ancienne is a world renowned absinthe and my most ambitious project. Always looking for a new challenge, I decided to try to recreate the flavor of pre-ban absinthe, which is absinthe coming from the few and exceedingly rare surviving bottles from the Belle Epoque. Pre-ban absinthe is universally considered the holy grail of absinthe but, due to its rarity, very few people have ever had a chance to taste it. 

I spent months studying old manuals and analyzing samples of pre-ban absinthe. I decided that two elements set pre-ban absinthe apart from even the best modern absinthe: 

An incredible intensity of flavors and an extremely rich, round, smooth green anise profile without being cloying or overpowering

The leather, old books and ethereal notes resulting from over 100 years of aging in forgotten cellars

I developed a proprietary distillation technique, which I named “exponential distillation”, that when applied to absinthe production results in an unusually high concentration of flavors, a thick and creamy louche, and a rich anise profile, while maintaining an extremely refined character. 

I then discovered a special ingredient that when used in the coloration step resulted in “vintage” flavor notes reminiscent of those found in pre-ban absinthe. The combination of those two elements, the “exponential distillation” and the secret ingredient in the coloration, resulted in what is considered by most experts to be the closest thing to pre-ban absinthe that money can buy. 

WARNING: as with most highly coveted products, following the suspension of L’Ancienne production in 2015, copycat products started appearing on the market claiming, more or less brazenly, to be perfect copies of L’Ancienne made with the same recipe. This is blatantly false. Not only have I NEVER authorized anybody else to distill my L’Ancienne recipe, but NO ONE besides me knows the full recipe for L’Ancienne. Even the distillery where L’Ancienne was produced only knows the ingredients and protocol of the distillation step; the coloration ingredients were always kept secret. There is no substitute for L’Ancienne.