Mansinthe

Mansinthe was recently sampled in a ‘taste-test’ conducted by a New York City food-blogger.  While presumed to be a food and spirits professional via his web-association with two international food and lifestyle magazines, the methodology of the tasting exposed that the writer lacked basic skills in conducting even a semi-competent spirits tasting panel.  The ‘tasting’ was conducted in plastic cups by a randomly selected group of deputized individuals, most having had no prior absinthe tasting experience, let alone general spirits industry experience.  Obviously confused by the smell and taste of real wormwood, and having no prior reference for comparison, the amateur tasters gave low scores and unprofessional comments, seemingly based on shock-value alone. It appeared as if the tasters spent much effort trying to outdo each other with how outrageous a tasting comment they could each create.  In spite of their inexperienced pallets, the panel did manage to score the Mansinthe higher than the most well known USA-legal absinthe presently on the market. Once the review was publicly posted on the blog, the amateur tasting panel was then magically transformed into ‘world spirit experts’ via the inability of many in the international press to actual review the qualifications and protocol used by the amateur tasters. Clearly, the celebrity attachment of rock superstar, Marilyn Manson, was a main driver and too juicy a target for papers that were more interested in running tabloid style stories, than researching facts. Not surprisingly, the other, lower scoring absinthe was never mentioned in the multitude of articles, obviously due to the lack of celebrity involvement.