Absinthe, You’d Better Make This Heart Grow Fonder

See ya, Old Man 2010; don’t let the door rupture your colostomy bag on the way out.

It’s late morning on December 31, 2010, and I’m here at the keyboard, reflecting, sans vino, on the past year. A few local vineyard mysteries solved, some nice wines from local grapes drunk; but, man, what a year of upheaval. Kathy has worked for three companies this year alone: the firm that relocated us to Oakley from Seattle in the summer of 2009; another company that cut her medical benefits the day she lost her job; and her current employer: a much more prestigious company, but the gig came with a cut in pay and benefits.

Our city of Oakley in East CoCo County is the literal “suburban bedroom community.” It’s a commuter’s Mecca, if by “Mecca” one means bowing one’s head to the steering wheel five times daily and, raising one’s head to the vehicle’s roof, loudly exhorting to your deity of choice. Highway 4 sucks, but it’s the only game in town. The Bible, Torah or Quran just doesn’t seem to help, no matter how long you scream into the sun visor at rush hour. And in our locale, much as city government would like to bolster local business, the reality is that any available gigs are in the retail sector. Not much call for a former stand-up comic, magician (past lives) or, (most recently), advertising copywriter, editor and prufreeder. Samples avale-able on re-kwest, natch.

2010 saw Kathy hear from old friends in Utah who are justthisclose to losing their house to foreclosure.

2010 saw our Seattle-area Woodinville wine pals, who, if Kath and I were feeling blue, would send a “Wine tasting tomorrow?” e-mail at just the right time. We found out that one of them lost their job due to the proverbial economy. They bought us a Didier Daguenau Sauvignon as a parting gift last year. The plan, as always, was to share it with them in our new house, but do not know when that can make economic sense for anyone. FYI: It’s still chillin’ at das crib, guys.

2010 saw other friends lose their dream ranch in Eastern Washington, where they were raising goats, chickens and a new baby daughter. Job precariousness necessitated their putting the homestead up for sale and relocating back to the other side of the Cascade Mountains, on a scaled-down version of their dream in suburban Woodinville.

2010 saw our neighbor, an investment banker no less, list his former model home on MLS as a short sale.

Working in SF, Kathy happened to pick up a couple of tickets that the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system was handing out at select stations. These were Sat/Sun-only tix, designed to encourage folks to come to the city just before Christmas. BART’s fares are mileage-based, like London’s Tube, but these tix were good for a one-way excursion, regardless of distance. Ever since leaving the Pacific Northwest last year, we had been jonesing for oysters. We’d been disappointed that any seafood in the East Bay had been “frozen for quality” when Seattle salmon was being given away up north. Heck, even the local “oyster bar” in Brentwood offers only the dinner-plate-sized Pacifics.

December 18, we drove to BART and rode to SF for three-dozen raw Olympia oysters and a bottle of Muscadet sur-lie. Absolutely glorious. Missed that so much.

We jumped on the Alameda ferry; the terminus is minutes from Rosenblum Cellars. St. George Spirits used to be located right beside the Rosenblum crib. They are not now. We disembarked the ferry and walked for 20 minutes to the new distillery, now call Hangar One for their eponymous Vodkas. We did a tasting, and the purity of the infusions is exquisite. We paid a little extra for the tasting of their “Absinthe Verte.”

Historically, Absinthe is that funky spirit infused with the dreaded herb wormwood which contains a supposedly addictive drug known as “thujone,” affecting such subversives as Baudelaire, Modigliani, van Gogh and Oscar Wilde. Bartender, see what the boys in the back room will have! By 1915, it was banned almost worldwide.

In the last month of 2007, St. George became the first American-made Absinthe manufactured here. It’s a gorgeous bottle sporting an oldee tymee apothecary label touting its contents as “Fine Brandy With the Choicest Herbs,” including star anise, mint, lemon balm, hyssop, meadowsweet, basil, fennel, tarragon, stinging nettles, and, last but not least, the storied, previously banned, wormwood. I’m more worried about the stinging nettles, but after 2010, am more than ready for wild imaginings.