It was all inspired by
Viktor Oliva's famous painting
Piják absintu
(Absinthe Drinker). This painting is hanging in the famous, and historic,
Cafe Slavia in Prague. We knew
it was painted around 1903. This started us thinking that there must have been some sort of absinthe culture in Prague at this time. And likely a tradition of making absinth for some time
before that.
So we decided our first step was to find out more about the painter himself. See the
history of Viktor Oliva
page for details. We were able to locate one of his descendants who was
kind enough to let us read his diaries. Eventually, we were able to track down a
reference in one of
his diaries (1,
2,
3) to him drinking a certain local absinth at Cafe Slavia (as well as a wish of his, but more on that
later). This was the piece of gold we were waiting for.
With this brand name, we were able to track down (after ages of searching through
PILES of 100+ year old archives) the address of where the distillery was. From
that, it wasn't too hard to find the actual structure.
Image 2,
3,
4,
5,
6
We then asked the local municipal office about what happened
to it (they happened to be occupying part of the original structure).
It turns out that the Second World War saw the abandonment of this building. Then Communism caused it to essentially be forgotten. It was not in a desirable location and didn't have any useful machinery so it was just left. In fact, it is still owned by the government. We got
special permission to enter, and found it to be largely looted and about mostly
empty, except for a few pieces of equipment (1,
2) covered with old tarps.
[Inside photos
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12]
However, in one of the many rooms inside we found some small piles of books and notebooks. Unfortunately, there have been floods in the area since it was abandoned. Many of the books were very damaged. Most of those that were legible were simply policies and copies of government regulations. However, one book was very special
for us. It was their procedural manual! It was also damaged, but much of it was salvageable
because of being sandwiched between other books and being in the closed position.
The pages (page
1,
page 2) containing their procedure for making absinth were clear enough. It was not a difficult proposition to reproduce it following
these procedures. The 3rd test batch came out fantastically. We were ecstatic!
We put it in a black bottle to protect the delicate natural green color from the
harmful effects of the sun.
Oliva's Dream
Now, back to Oliva's diary. There was another
entry
where he went out to celebrate with a lady friend of his. They were
drinking Champagne. He held up his glass and looked at his companion
through it.
He
mused, "As I looked at her through my glass, and saw
her beautiful form, it looked as if the Green Fairy herself was swimming
inside. What a wonderful pairing that would be!"
With our perfected Oliva Absinth ready, we set to work on this "pairing" of two
historically opposing worlds (the French wine industry was involved with the
push to ban absinthe in that country).
This was incredibly difficult. To keep our methodology secret, we will not divulge the full process of how we finally arrived at our procedure. It took many, many attempts to
produce an absinthe with the textural qualities of a fine champagne. Remember, absinthe is consumed diluted with about 60% water, so the bubbles had to last even after adding water. The result is amazing. The bubbles increase the "absinthe effect", and tickle the tongue into ecstasy.
This is the first Sparkling Absinthe to ever be made in the world.
You will love it!
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