Essential Liquor #5

#5) Herbsaint- Never heard of it? Well, it’s got to be in your bar. Louisiana in the 1800s was the U.S. king of absinthe. Then the government decided to ban absinthe for nearly 100 years from 1915-2007. So, in 1934, an enterprising tag team of J.M. Legendre and Reginald Parker of New Orleans created absinthe without its offending ingredient- wormwood. Of course, the government stormed back in to stop this absinthe too. So they simply changed the name to Herbsaint. In my opinion, it’s tastier that anything the French have.



For our recipe, we go back to the mid-1920s, where a Russian doctor, Serge Voronoff, was hard at work in Paris perfecting his surgeries of which he hoped would deliver on the promise of eternal youth. How, you ask? Well by transplanting a young monkey testicle into an old dude’s sack, of course! (You can’t make this stuff up!) Anyway, the expected aphrodisiac effects of this procedure inspired a great drink. No, there’s no monkey juices in it. Man, you guys are sick.


The Monkey Gland
1 ½ ounces of gin
1 ½ ounces of fresh squeezed orange juice
1 tsp grenadine
1 tsp Herbsaint
Shake vigorously. Garnish with monkey testicle (or not).


The two we poured for you (in picture form), were prepared with fresh squeezed clementines. It was incredibly good.