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October 03, 2004
Welcome
Posted by VeraWench at 10:07 PM | Comments (6)
The Emerald Quest will from now on function as a blog. Bear with me while I configure this damn Movable Type interface and get my small group of travelers author accounts.
October 01, 2004
Pontarlier Visit 2003
Posted by Oxygenee at 11:07 PM | Comments (0)
Vera's Note: Oxygenne is the proprietor of The Virtual Absinthe Museum - The World of Absinthe & Absinthe Antiques (formerly Oxygénée's Absinthiana).
I was recently able to spend an absinthe-soaked few days in France, mainly in the company of that prince amongst absintheurs, Pierreverte. A few very brief notes
Friday:
Peter is something of a local celebrity in Paris, being greeted with effusive cries and kisses on both cheeks by almost every bistrot proprietor and cavist we met. His French is astonishingly good. Visited a local brocante fair – was offered an “unrecorded absinthe spoon” – actually a broken sugar tongs - for around a thousand euros. Dinner at Peter’s flat in Montmartre, where the charming Sabine cooked us a superb Magret a canard.
Saturday:
The market at St Ouen – a huge rabbit warren - very little absinthiana, and what there was of poor quality and overpriced. Some fascinating stalls though, including one selling 19th century erotica with a range of extraordinarily life-like and…er..lifesize antique carved ivory dildos….perhaps…Queen Victoria’s Secret?
Sunday:
Off to Auvers sur Oise and the museum – some mouthwatering spoons and wonderful prints and paintings. Madame Delahaye is petite, immaculately dressed, very charming, but tough and certainly no pushover (except apparently for Ted…). Showed us her Toulouse Lautrec spoon (not on public display) with great ceremony. The other visitor to the museum turned out to be a well-known French collector with whom I’d corresponded but never met – off we went to his house nearby, where we saw another Lautrec spoon, the 1900 Tour Eiffel, and an amazing assembly of fountains and carafes. Spent an animated two hours discussing the possible genuineness of the Lautrec spoons (nerdy…I know, I know, but fun). The consensus: the spoon itself may be genuine, but under the loupe one can clearly see that the TL logo has been individually hand-cut later from each spoon and is definitely faked.
Tuesday:
TGV early in the morning to Pontarlier. Checked into the St Pierre, directly opposite the arch at the top of Rue de la Republique. Visited the local antique shop (whose proprietor is to honest and ethical dealing roughly what Michael Jackson is to responsible child care). Lunch with the deputy mayor of Pontarlier. On to the Francois Guy distillery – very friendly, but their copper absinthe still is rather disappointingly simple. Tasted their newly reformulated product, using their own “genetically modified” plants – IMO, less good than their original blend. Bought some of the local gentiane eau de vie – stunning in a head-snapping kinda way. Next the Pernot distillery – met the charming Madame Pernot, who runs the show, and saw their original Egrot specialized absinthe still – identical to the illustrations in Duplais and other early books. Tasted their excellent Sapin, which is light-years better than Guy’s. Dinner that night at Villers le Lac, a fabulous Michelin-starred restaurant about 40km from Pontarlier (the Feuillantine de Homard aux Noix, Jus d’Ecailleux a la Chicorée, was, and I don’t say this lightly, a religious experience). Decided not to order the 1895 Chateau Chalon at 5300 euros on the winelist.
Wednesday:
The Pontarlier Museum – several unique items, including sealed bottles from as early as 1820, cartons, posters, paintings etc. Then off to the Val de Travers with a mutual Swiss friend who’d dedicated the day to showing us around – Fleurier, Motiers, the sechoir at Boveresse, Couvet, Travers and to Neuchatel for lunch at the Gault Millau rated Villa Peyrou – another superb 6 course meal…. Home via Fleurier and the Jacot chocolate shop (the finest handmade chocolates in Switzerland). Acquired a bottle of the local Boveresse La Bleue – excellent. Back to Pontarlier, stumble on TGV, home to Paris. Decided to skip dinner.
The Man from Chert - Visiting with Julian Segarra
Posted by Pierreverte at 03:11 AM | Comments (1)
Had a little field trip to chert to visit julian segarra with germanandy...this is the middle of nowhere in spain...but the nicest family one could ever imagine, or hope to visit when no one speaks the language...but here are a few quick points, since i leave tomorrow again and don't have much time...segarra absenta is distilled using grape spirits, and two plants...grand absinthe and green anis...that's it...oh, and it is colored naturally with another plant, that being an american oak tree...the color is left clear after distilling and then it is aged in oak barrels (well, i only saw one) and that is where the color and the butterscotch or caramel taste comes from...and there is no sugar added...so, i would say a very authentic product along with the 20 or so other things he distills (his gin is spectacular, i told him it was smooth as water and he poured some on his wood table and set it on fire)...a great experience altogether, but i would have loved to have had a translator with us...next time...
Traveler’s advisory when visiting european cities…to avoid depression it is best to be blindfolded until you reach the city’s historical district…
Tarragona was not what we thought it would be (at least not me)…it is a bustling port city, full of crappy outskirts, kind of like marseille, but smaller, with more class and less a feeling of dread…it has a very small old town (the part we saw) with a couple of antique stores and I knew that we were screwed when it was obvious that neither andy, my friend dwayne or myself could bluff our way with spanish…when you are in spain, people speak spanish, and we, did not…the guy at the antique store thought I was asking about buying absinthe from him and seemed distressed…the girl at the tourist information desk didn’t know anything about pernod, but helped andy find the number for the segarra distillery and called for him to find out if we could come by…it was late, 5:45pm, as we had started all our days late since showing up at andy’s beach-side doorstep a couple of days before (again, I must warn against mixing absinthe and red wine, whether in the same glass or in your stomach)…and we were not close to chert (about another 150 kilometers) I was guarding the rental car as we had overstayed our meter by visiting the impressive 11th – 13th century church, hopelessly looking for absinthe-related items while the town slept from 1 to 5 pm and eating lunch, one of my favorite pastimes.
‘if we don’t go now, I’ll never do it again,’ I whined to my friend Dwayne…he was not enthused, nor does he really like the taste of anis…did you see the map? It’s more than 200 kilometers from here! He joined andy at the tourist info booth while the girl was speaking to julian segarra, apparently having great difficulty understanding him, do to his accent…they returned to the car…we can go, it’s in somebody’s house…’what do you mean? A tasting room?’ no they live at the distillery… ‘when do they close?’ they don’t, it’s their house…it was 6:30pm when we left tarragona…chert is in the middle of nowhere, we arrived at a dusty side road many kilometres from the main highway at about 8:00pm…there was construction on the main road leading to town, so we had to take a detour…the sign said CHERT but someone (a Catalonian independent, presumably) had spray-painted an X over the CH and the Michelin map had spelled it Xert, but it is spelled CHERT on the bottle(more about this later.) I slowly drove into town, expecting the distillery to be like a vineyard or ranch on the outskirts of town…it was a very small, dusty place, with people sitting outside their homes and we were greeted with the smell of manure…this was a ‘real’ country town, almost like driving into a western set, and everyone watched as we came in…I had no idea where the distillery was and it was starting to get dark…I took the first major turn and started looking for signs…and old land rover blocked the letters at first, but then I saw the big green S, then E, G, A and the land rover had SEGARRA painted on the side and over the front windshield…there were a few people outside talking and I parked the car in front…grandma segarra came out of the group, and asked (please note, all language spoken by the segarra’s is in spanish but translated as we assumed was what they said, much hand waving and noises were used in the place of a shared formal language) english? ‘no, americans and a german’ ah, you called us! Julian segarra rushes up to us, welcoming us…this way, this way….there is a young couple who had just finished their tour, the woman cluching a bottle of brandy…it’s like going back in to the 1930’s in there! ‘oh, you speak English, can you translate for us?' No, we were just leaving…’we’ll pay you! For 20 minutes, even?’ no, we have a child that is waiting for us, have fun! Damn, it was so close, if we had arrived 15 minutes earlier…there was another land rover in the building, which was like and old, large garage…on the left was a door way that lead to a dark kitchen…here is our bottling machine, it can do up to 1200 bottles an hour…from the size of the place, I was thinking that was more like a month’s production…big barrels of brandy lined the wall and one was set apart and marked ‘GRAN MAESTRE’ which is their top of the line, 60+years old and costs $2200(yes, two thousand) for a 70cl bottle…we can only call it brandy, because we are not allowed to call it cognac, since that is a legal French name…. ‘can we take pictures?’ go ahead, do you want to pose in front of the GRAN MAESTRE? Here is the still…a single still (I need to get photos from Dwayne or andy, on reflection, I took surprisingly few, what with the hand waving, and all) sat on top of a brick closed fireplace, wood branches sticking out of a small opening… ‘what kind of wood?’ olive trees…nice… ‘when was it made?’ I couldn’t understand grandpa segarra’s response, so he wrote it with his fingers 1 9 2 8…ok, that’s the distillery…one still!, about 30 different products…I knew any attempt at really detailed questions would be almost impossible to undertake…but the family was cheerful and happy to have us there…what do you like? Julian segarra asked me … ‘absenta’ … he seemed a little surprised and then lead us into the tasting room …
I do not believe that most people, or, in fact, anyone, goes to segarra to sample absinthe…on his price list of 27 products (he has, in fact, more) absenta is last…as don has mentioned, he is a brandy-maker…but ,in my opinion, the distillery was founded more on the production of distilled anis, a product that circles the Mediterranean, made in almost every country that touches it…the charming terra cotta sculpture which featured the distinctive traditional Spanish anis bottle was, without a doubt, a prized possession at the distillery…julian dusted it off, grabbed a bottle of anis and posed...
I wasn’t that interested in trying anis… i’m sure his is one of the best, but i knew what it would do to my taste buds and i had to drive back to andy’s place, which was a good 2-3 hours + north…julian started with a brandy…grandma sergarra brought out a tray with tiny plastic shot glasses stacked 4 high…grampa segerra sat down in a chair and observed, throwing in comments once in a while…god, they were nice people, and patient, too…I couldn’t believe they could deal with us so late, but seemed thrilled that we were there…I hope andy will throw some comments in soon, since I do not wish this report to be one-dimensional, and I’m sure I missed a lot, but julian seemed to feel I was the head of the group and focused on me, much to my discomfort, as I was shooting out English, French and just a little Spanish, trying to hit the right word or phrase…I can't really comment on the brandy, as I was not really paying attention to it enough for it to merit a critique…what I will say is nothing I put in my mouth was mediocre…rum, gin (ginebra, shit, I first thought this was something made with ginger, due to it’s name…pitiful) as I mentioned before the gin was great, smooth, gliding down like water(i have since made a 'french martini' with it and the absenta, it is a natural)…I think julian thought I was distrustful of the alcoholic content when he drizzled it on the table and set it on fire…it was the first time I had tasted segarra absenta and it was served neat…it was anis-sweet with a light scent of wormwood …’what is it made with?’ absinthe and green anis, only… ‘no star anis or other herbs?’ …no…and sugar? NO sugar! He started pointing to the price list explaining the alcohol content of certain products and whether they had sugar in them or not…when a farmer comes back home, he would drink a glass of absenta and water only, then his thirst would be gone…people in the city use sugar with lesser products…’do you know about deva or la sala?’ he didn’t know about these products, nor did he seem familiar with any other Spanish absenta…
the segarra's are photo buffs, also, and showed us pictures of a total solar eclipse they had taken with a jury rigged $10 plastic camera that had been fitted with a modified lens made with what looked to be a piece of a metal pipe...the sun had melted part of the plastic aperture...professional quality photos, though...grandpa segarra then brought out two photos of him as a child behind the wheel of a 1927 renault (i believe) which had a crank-start...his father was standing in front of the car and looked exactly like him now...we also had show and tell, when julian brought out his map of the united states, pasted on a piece of cardboard...it was the kind that has little pictures of things that are native to the region, instead of accuracy...near san diego was a little p-38 lightning and seatle, a constellation, amongst many other things that weren't so obvious as to date the map from the 1940's or so...i pointed to florida, then wisconsin and julian got excited...ah, madison! like 'bridges of madison county?' no, dwayne explained, that's in iowa over here...i still couldn't stop looking at the p-38, and then tried explain about san francisco and how people like absinthe there...it didn't really translate...he had a map of spain on the wall(you can see it behind his head in the anis photo) that dated from the 1930's, but looked like it could have been used by a conquistador...then he pointed to the new tourist map taped to a steel tank...'i see chert be spelled with an 'x' like on our michelin map?' NO!
look at this map! look at my label...we do not like this (apparently changing town signs and directions with spray-paint is a pastime of separatist catalonians, basques and, as i discovered later, corsicans, and michelin attempts to be hip) it is spelled
C-H-e-r-t! i don't know his politics and wasn't even going to attempt at discussing it...'ok!, got it'...he went in the back and brought back some papers...they were pages of a FAXed correspondence order from australia for absinthe...in it, the person explained to sr. segarra that they were going to have a 'lana turner party' and were showing a movie that featured absinthe, or something to that effect (i was sure this had to be a friend of midas)he also showed me his kind response, and i believe the order was filled, but late...to be in this setting and see that letter was unbelievable...by-the-way, the segarras do not have a computer, their site is done by a friend, who also receives their e-mail, and the absenta is the only label i saw with the web-site address printed on it... i decided that, even though it might not be correct etiquette(after the NO gathering) to bring out another absinthe, i had brought some of andy's orange absinthe and tempted fate, out of shear curiosity about his opinion and a 'you never know until you do it' attitude...i pulled out the topette and poured two small shot glasses for julian and his father...when julian said no, no, no and started pouring it back in the topette, i was sure i had worn out the welcome...
Julian had made a joke earlier on during our tasting that took about 5 minutes and a lot of jumping around on his part for me to get. He had pulled out a bottle of dark brown coffee-liquor and started pointing at all the different metal tanks lined up, a plastic hose and the bottle; then, in a gesture that I have also seen in france, he took his finger and pulled down the skin under his eye, causing an appearance like a one-sided basset hound. He starts laughing…I laugh at his gestures, but then my faces crinkles in confusion…he points again at the tanks, making a slashing sign, indicating a low level, then he points at the hose and the bottle and makes the face gesture again…I don’t know what the hell the point to the joke is, but its funny to grandpa and grandma and him…andy and dwayne also seem confused… ‘help me out here!’ no help…julian quickly moves around the room, laughing and not believing I can’t get it. He finds another hose in the corner picks it up, pretends like he’s sticking it into each tank and then the bottle. dwayne jumps in. he means that he’s siphoned off from the bottom of each barrel and put it into the bottle… ‘ahh!’ I get it…a distillery joke, the dregs of the other stuff go into making the coffee-liquor! Dark brown, nasty looking, nudge, nudge, basset hound wink, wink…
I was more relieved than anything, I think julian was, too.
He didn’t have that mischievous grin when he was pouring andy’s absinthe back into the bottle. Two glasses are too much for a taste! I was relieved, once again. Grandpa wasn’t tasting. He picked up the small glass and took a taste, savoring the drink and then went over to andy to discuss it. Focus off me, good…on andy, very good. They discussed alcohol types and how andy's seemed different, indicating his reserve tanks of alcohol…a few other things that I didn’t hear or don’t recall, andy will need to help out here (I had vague hopes of discussing with julian about making absinthe in a traditional way with green color, higher alcohol, etc. but they were dashed with our lack of his language…not that he would have changed anything for me, anyway). he concluded that andy’s was good, but if you are making 5 liters or so for yourself, it’s not the same as making it as a business. I asked him about alcohol percentage levels, and he pointed to the percentage on the bottle and explained how strict the laws were about keeping it no more than .5 degrees in either way in order to pass, and how he measured it himself, right there, and it was even closer than required, in the hundredths.
On the paper he was using to describe this I wrote: THUJONE <10%
He looks at it…then he points to a tank and with much animation replies…very difficult to do…distill, distill, distill, STOP, take measurement…distill, distill, distill, STOP! take another measurement…distill, distill, distill, STOP!! take yet another measurement, very difficult and the measurements can all be different and you have to stop the distillation each time…not worth it…you can make your own conclusions from what he told us...
Grandma segarra asked me which one I liked. ‘the absenta’ the absenta?! She seemed a little disturbed, then said, it is very hard to make, it takes so much time! I thought I was going to get an absintheur-lecture, but it turns out that it is just a pain in the ass to make, and she obviously helps. She looked at the topette and asked to taste it…it seemed to surprise julian and the rest of us…she liked it, and andy has attested to her approval of him, although he is privy to more information shared between the two of them…
By the end of the evening we were posing together and julian had declared us all ‘amigos.’
I tried to tell him that more people who like absinthe may come to visit him, but I think he thought I said that they had already been there, as he seemed to act like he couldn’t remember having met them... he has a web address, but doesn’t have a computer. His friend was handling this for him (you can check out more about his distillery at: www.lotobono.com/segarra - translator required.)
It was after 10pm and we had a long way back home…who is driving? the segarras asked. ‘me’ be very careful! I felt quite sober, happily, and had tried to limit myself severely, considering I wanted to try everything…no anis, vodka, lemon, or the several levels of brandy and rum…do you know how to get back to the main highway? they asked (there was only one road) grandma segarra offered to draw a map… ‘no, thank you, I don’t think we’ll need it.’ they walked us out to the car after taking our orders and packing them carefully in boxes…here, I will put tape on them, julian said, and remember to keep it in this direction up, or the bottles may leak. (a major flaw at the segarra distillery is the capping portion of the bottling machine, which does not screw down the caps properly all the time, and possibly the caps, themselves) this has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of his products, although it doesn’t help, and may affect them afterwards, but I am sure bottling machines are expensive…we brought our boxes out to the car and julian made sure they were secure, in an up-right position…I shook hands with him and thanked him... grandma segarra came up to me and made a comment, I think, about it being nice to meet people from elsewhere, and become friends... I put my hands together, interlocking my fingers, and tried to say something about it being nice to get together like that... a look went over her face like I had just asked if she could point us in the direction of the local whore-house... I quickly pulled my hands apart and smiled and tried to rephrase my statement and then she smiled and I kissed her on each cheek. We all hopped into the car and pulled away as the two generations of segarras waved us off. great people, great products...
When we got to the intersection of the road and the freeway, we stopped for gas…I asked the girl behind the glass of the closed quicky-mart/gas station to get us a bottle of water, as it was still quite hot... it was very cold and felt damn nice going down... I wish we had had it back at the distillery.
The Phantom of Auvers
Posted by Wolfgang at 02:15 AM | Comments (5)
Auvers-sur-Oise is a small town located about 1 hour by train north of Paris. We went there on Sunday the 18th of November. In France, everything is quiet on Sunday. At the "gare du nord" train station, the ticket clerk told us it was a direct ride but in fact we found out that there was a transfer... We ended up at the wrong place, in the middle of nowhere, trying to figure out how to go to Auvers. There was nobody around, the small town train station was desert. We finally found a place to buy a card for the public telephone (you can't use coins in those French public phones!) and we called a taxi...we ended up talking to an answering machine. We then went to the local "cafe" where the whole town seemed to be drinking the Beaujolais nouveau. There was a taxi in front of the place. We asked the waitress about it and she shouted: "Eugene! They are looking for you!". A guy came and explained to us it was impossible for him to give us a ride to Auvers. When I asked if it was very far away, he told me: "about 10 minutes" ! He was having his drink, we where just tourists and it was Sunday... So we waited for the next train...
We finally got to Auvers under a depressing gray sky. The strain station was desert. We looked around and when we saw the old stone church, we where drawn to it.
When I finally got in front of the church, the one Van Gogh had painted, I understood the meaning of his painting. This Church really looked haunted! We took some pictures and went to the cemetery where we found Van Gogh`s humble sepulcher surrounded by flowers. The old stone church he painted, the small town where he lived his last years, his remain just there six feet under and this terrible gray sky...
We came back from the cemetery quietly, holding hands in silent understating of the preciousness of the moment. I remember that I was feeling better. I had a feeling of accomplishment when I came back from his tomb. I knew then I was living one of the best days of my life.
Now was the time to find the absinthe museum!
The ghost of Van Gogh led us through the maze of narrow stone paved streets and we finally reached the absinthe museum. It's a nice stone house. Mme Delahaye was outside in her garden. She acted surprised to be recognized and looked happy to pose with me for a picture. In her garden, she grows many herbs used in antiques absinthe recipes, including of course Artemisia absithium. As I previously read, Marie-Claude Delahaye is an extremely kind woman, knowledgeable, passionate but still human and easily reachable. It was a pleasure to talk with her about some details of our mutual interest. To my surprise, she didn't seem to know about some modern Spanish absinthe. As she told me, the first absinthe she tasted was from an antique bottle so I guess she was just wasted from the beginning. Then again, I was happy to be there in November because there was almost no visitor.
In the first room, I saw the almost mythic (and impossible to find) book "Absinthe: Art et histoire" (The one sold about 200 US$ on Ebay). When she saw my interest, after some absinthe chitchat, she told me she still had some copies of original printings of her books she kept for collectors... This was getting better and better! I visited her incredible collection (sorry - she asked me not to take pictures). When I asked her how to recognize an antique glass, she just opened a display, took an incredibly large Pontarlier glass and put it in my hands! "Do you feel it? I feel it when it's a real one" (followed by more technical explanations of course...). I couldn't believe it!
Her collection is like traveling back in time, bottles after full bottles of antique absinthe. Fountains, painting, glass, spoons....lots of spoons! Even my girlfriend, who doesn't like absinthe, liked her visit to the absinthe museum and was charmed by Mme Delahaye. At the end of the visit I even had the chance to buy something I was not expecting to buy there (don't ask more detail, just imagine). She also gave me a cutting of artemisia absinthium (but, unfortunately, it didn't pass through the Canadian customs because we just can't import anything that's alive without the proper and expensive papers...). We exchanged emails and I gave her the forum address. I got out with a bag full of dedicated books, some free postcards and a pile of business cards ;-) It would have been nice to talk about the green faery all day long but at that point my girlfriend was already waiting for me at the local cafe...
On a more technical side, I learned why modern French "absinthe" like Versinthe is so sweet: It's a twist in the French regulation. It's still against the law to make absinthe but it's permitted to make liquor that contain artemisia absinthium. Liquor in France must contain a minimum amount of sugar...
I also learned that according to her, the absinthe community is very small. It's extremely rare for her to meet a knowledgeable visitor in her museum. That's probably why she was so kind. (And that's probably why she cooperated to make something like La Fee for the masses instead of an authentic reproduction...but that`s just my guess).
If you go to Auvers, tell her I say hello!
Wolfgang (who's seriously thinking about moving to France where the absinthe roots are, where wines are so good, where the food is delicious and where women are soo sweet)