Hello, everyone and welcome back to The Ombibulous, a show where we discuss a variety of topics regarding alcohol. From specific beer styles, distillation, the brewing process, wine, spirits, and even a history of certain liquor laws, there's a fascinating world to explore. On this episode, we kick off the mixer series by exploring the mysteries of absinthe. Joining me today is Michael Kashey of Thomas Moriarty's here in downtown Mandan. I'm your host, Connor Brekke. Let's all raise a glass to The Ombibulous.

Connor Brekke 00:49

Alright everybody, welcome back. Today I am joined by Mr. Michael Kashey, owner and procurer of Thomas and Moriarty's here in downtown Mandan. Welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us.

Michael Kashey 01:01

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Connor Brekke 01:03

So today, we're going to kick off something a bit different. It's not about beer. Today, we're going to be talking about absinthe. And absinthe is to me, and to a lot of people kind of a mystery. I honestly didn't even know it was legal until recently. It's kind of got this.. mysteryousness.

Michael Kashey 01:22

Yeah, we get that a lot. There's a lot of misconceptions about absinthe, what it is, what it is, and what it does and doesn't do.

Connor Brekke 01:31

Well, I was hoping today that you could teach everybody a little bit about absinthe. Do you want to break down kind of like a brief history of it for us and what it's all about, and maybe iron out some of these myths and rumors that people hear?

Michael Kashey 01:46

Yeah, we can do a super quick thing. So absent is a it's a black licorice flavored, star anice flavored distilled spirit. It's not a liquor, doesn't have any sugar added to it. That originated in Switzerland in the late 18th century, the first kind of actual references we have to absinthe would have been around 1799. And it.. from there, it spread into France, Belgium, Netherlands and throughout Europe a bit. So absinthe started getting started getting really popular with French soldiers. And a little bit later on in the 19th century, French soldiers in Algeria would be well, obviously, kind of fighting you know, for the, the French. I don't know if you'd call it Empire at the time, but whatever that was, and they would be also fighting malaria. So one of the very popular kind of remedies for malaria was absinthe, and they would do something called absinthe or mixing the called absinthe soup, which sounds super weird, and it kind of is they would water down absinthe with red wine. So after the French conquest of Algeria, they came back to France and they brought with them their love of absinthe. And then it started to kind of grow from there and really started to hit the hit the streets.

Connor Brekke 03:13

Because, the thing about this type of substance back then, as we know it is hard liquor today, it

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