Episode 150: Absinthe’s Long Journey, With Ted Breaux

Ted Breaux is a research chemist and absinthe producer who in 2007 successfully challenged the U.S. ban on absinthe, reintroducing it to American drinkers for the first time in almost a century. For this episode, Breaux joins us to explore why absinthe was banned in the first place, and to explain how he successfully challenged the ban and how absinthe’s fortunes have changed in the years since.

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Paul Clarke 

Hey everyone, welcome back to Radio Imbibe from Imbibe Magazine. I’m Paul Clarke, Imbibe‘s Editor-in-Chief. 

It’s May 2026, and if you are an Imbibe subscriber or if you’ve picked up a copy of the magazine recently, then you may have noticed that we just published our 20th anniversary issue. We’ve got lots of great stuff in that issue that we put together to help celebrate that anniversary. And since we’ve been looking back a little bit at all the kinds of stories and recipes and projects that we’ve put together or been involved with over the years, we wanted to share a little bit of that with our audience in a number of different ways. 

So for this episode, we’re going to go back in some ways to a topic that was on many of our minds way back in 2007 or so, and that is the changing legal status of absinthe that made the storied spirit available again in the United States for the first time in what was then almost a century. I’d first started my own absinthe exploration a year or two before that, via attending house parties here in Seattle organized by some local absinthe enthusiasts slash home distillers slash specialty importers, let’s just put it that way.

A formative experience during that time was attending Tales of the Cocktail back when it was at the Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans, and wandering through the halls trying to find the conference room where an absinthe tasting and seminar was about to take place and suddenly picking up in the air this very powerful and beguiling aroma that was floating down the hall from where the session was about to get underway. 

That absinthe session was led by Ted Breaux, a chemist and New Orleans native who had relocated to Alabama in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Ted had been investigating absinthe for a number of years at that point and had begun distilling it in France some years earlier. During that first meeting, absinthe hadn’t yet fully cleared all the legal hurdles that made it widely available again. But Ted and his team behind the brand they were about to launch, called Lucid, were pressing the U.S. government in an ultimately successful effort to allow absinthe back into the U.S. market.

How did that happen? And why ban absinthe in the first place? And almost 20 years later, what do we need to know about absinthe today? For this episode, my old friend Ted Breaux is joining us to take us on a long absinthe journey and to explain how absinthe’s fortunes have changed over the past couple of decades. 

[music]

Paul Clarke

Ted, welcome to Radio Imbibe

Ted Breaux

Hey, great to be here, Paul. 

Paul Clarke

Absolutely. And I’m so pleased to have you on the podcast and to chat with you again. You and I have known each other for many years, almost 20 years now. And I’m particularly happy to have you on now in 2026 because this is Imbibe‘s 20th anniversary year. And we’re looking back on lots of things from the past 20 years and taking that journey down memory lane. Now, you can’t talk about the past 20 years in the world of drink, spirits, and cocktails specifically, without talking about absinthe. Because what happened in the past 20 years with absinthe marked a significant shift in the spirits history in many ways. So let me ask you, take us in your steampunk time machine back to 2006.

And there you are, you’re thirsty, you could use something special, and you’re in the mood for an honest to god Sazerac or a true blue Absinthe Frappe made with absinthe, accept no substitutes. What kind of situation would you be in during that timeframe if you were looking for absinthe? 

Ted Breaux

Let’s see, in 2006, if one wanted a genuine absinthe for a classic cocktail, that’s it, full stop. There is nothing. And I mean nothing. And that was a huge problem. Listen, not only if you’re in the U.S., let’s say you were in London, and you wanted genuine absinthe for a classic cocktail. I mean, nothing. Even if you were in France, even if you were an absinthe country in France, your options were limited. Of course, unless you had something that was a bootleg product, you know, from one of those intrepid Swiss bootleggers. There was nothing.

And I tell people, you know, when I started studying absinthe back in New Orleans in 1994, seems like another lifetime now. But one of the things that inspired me was, I mean, I wanted to study absinthe being a research scientist. And where do you find absinthe to study? So that was a huge issue. And for me, in 2006, by that point in time, I had been to Europe. I had been to the nether regions of France and Switzerland and met distillers as well. I had done plenty of distillation experiments myself. And also, by that time, I owned numerous examples of the finest pre-ban absinthe.

Those are absinthes from before 1915, before it was banned in France, which was more or less the last nail in the coffin. And I knew what they tasted like and knew everything about them. The problem was, I was in a, what I described is a very lonely club of people who were intimately familiar with pre-ban absinthe and knew what it tasted like, knew what it was supposed to be. And there was nothing anywhere on the market like it. The only thing you could find back then were like anise liqueurs and some absinthe substitutes, you know, fake color, sugar, nothing that was a hallmark of any absinthes from the Belle Epoque. 

Paul Clarke

And before we get to modern history, can we talk a little bit about the older history? Going back now, more than a century, how did absinthe first establish the reputation it had in France and New Orleans and in cities around the world? This is where it was prized. It was a piece of the culture, part of the drinking culture, starting in the 19th century. And how did that go so wrong once we got into the early 20^th? 

Ted Breaux

Absolutely. Absinthe evolved as a medicinal, it was basically a good tasting medicine. That’s what it was that, you know, had a bit of pop, made you feel good more ways than one. And it’s, was something that was regional. It wasn’t even nationwide in France or Switzerland at that point. It was a very regional product. And it became popular, especially after the French military in all its wisdom issued rations of absinthe to French soldiers in North Africa, because it was said if you had some water that wasn’t quite clean enough to drink, you know, out in the field, that you could add a little absinthe to it and that would render it hygienic and prevent you from, you know, getting diseases like dysentery.

Paul Clarke

It will kill anything that’s in it.

Ted Breaux 

Exactly. That’s it. It’ll, it’ll, it’ll, you know, it’ll, it’ll purify it. So, uh, basically, uh, French soldiers soon discovered that instead of adding a little absinthe to water, it was a lot more fun to add a little water to absinthe. Basically, absinthe proliferated through the military, the taste for absinthe. And the thing is, all these soldiers eventually go home. When they do, they brought a taste, for absinthe with them. And that really catalyzed the, the popularity of absinthe throughout France. Of course, throughout Switzerland as well, but, um, France nationwide. I mean, absinthe was something that, that became known and, we see it, if you go back in New Orleans history, you’ll see that it gets, starts getting imported into the U.S.

I mean, by like the 1850s, it definitely starts appearing in places where objects of French culture are, are appreciated and spirits and wine eventually gained steam in the U.S. and becomes part of cocktail culture here. And I’ll tell you what else made absinthe really popular was during the 1870s and 1880s when the vineyards of Europe were ravaged with phylloxera. Right.

And basically something that, you know, a staple drink in France, wine, which is something that, you know, anytime you eat something, you have wine with it. Absinthe became more or less a substitute for a lot of people. I say a substitute. I mean, when wine became sort of a relatively scarce and expensive as compared to a normal, people, just switched over to drinking that. Wonderful, a nice tasting spirit that sort of, you know, wipe the palate clean from all the, know, tobacco and things like that was a refreshing aperitif. 

Paul Clarke

And then, you know, you mentioned the cocktail culture aspect because, you know, this, again, this is coming in very much from the American contribution in some ways. With that kind of popularity in New Orleans, specifically, when you saw this absinthe role in cocktail culture developing in that kind of 19th early/20th century style, what kinds of things are we talking about? And like, you know, I mentioned the Sazerac at the outset, but it was much more than the Sazerac. 

Ted Breaux

Oh, much more than the Sazerac. In fact, we, if we skip ahead to 1930 and we look at, uh, Harry Craddock’s, the Savoy Cocktail Book, which I tell people if I were marooned on a desert island with one cocktail book, that’s the one to have. There are like a hundred cocktails in the book that call for absinthe. Absinthe evolved with cocktail culture. And, uh, C. F. Waller, who published The Mixocologist, the fine cocktail book from 1895, he was a hotelier from Cincinnati. He, he makes a blurb about absinthe in the book. He says, many people find that the flavor of a cocktail is much improved by the addition of a small amount of absinthe.

And I describe in an American cocktail culture, I describe absinthe’s use as cocktail hot sauce. It gives it a bit of pop. It pretty, and it works with just about anything. I mean, even tiki drinks. So it was just, uh, it was like having, hot sauce on the table is bartender’s hot sauce, that dash of absinthe. And that’s really, uh, how absinthe was, um, enjoyed for the most part in the U.S. Although in places like New Orleans, you go to the Old Absinthe House, you know, which has been around since 1874.

And you see the, the green and white marble absinthe fountains on the bar, uh, which, uh, is a bit unusual by American standards because it shows absinthe being served the French way, which was, you know, a bit of ice water. Or in the hot, humid climate of New Orleans, it would be, uh, an Absinthe Frappe. know, you, a shot of absinthe and a shaker full of ice and, and something to sweeten it. Like a, my favorite, it’s about a quarter ounce of Benedictine shaken until you almost can’t hold it anymore because it’s so frosty and dispense it into something like a Nick & Nora and bottoms up. Super refreshing. 

Paul Clarke

So there we are, you know, absinthe is going into, into early versions of the Manhattan. It’s going into these New Orleans cocktails. It’s, it’s being sipped with, with a little bit of water, as you noted in the European style. Everybody loves it. Everything’s great. What happens in the early 20th century so that all of a sudden absinthe is just gone? 

Ted Breaux

Well, what happens in the, the 20th century begins in the mid 19th century. And that is, um, absinthe became hugely popular. Back then, except for like appelations, there was really no regulation. What I tell people, the best way to describe what happened is the same thing that happened in the early and mid-1700s in London with. a phenomenon that we know as the Gin Craze. And basically that’s where gin earned the nickname Mother’s Ruin. And I don’t know about you. I don’t know any mothers have been ruined specifically by gin.

But the whole point of the Gin Craze was that if you just… When something becomes popular and people find ways to make it cheaper or rather imitations of it very cheaply without regulation or restriction, then it becomes problematic. And the victims in all this are almost always those of lower socioeconomic status who did not have the money to really be discretionary about what they bought. In the late 19th century, we find lots of indications in France of whereby consumers were very brand conscious when buying absinthe. They had to be. They had to ask for it by the brand name because there were so many cheap, adulterated imitations. And a lack of regulation proliferate. It did cause health problems, which the wine industry and the brandy makers conveniently used as a scapegoat to demonize the whole category and just say, look, absinthe is a poison.

And while all this controversy was raging in Europe, by the turn of the century, by, you know, around 1900, it was in full swing. But here in the U.S. it just seemed like such an odd thing because no one here was having any problems with absinthe. And the reality is, is that the cheap, adulterated products were the root cause of the problem, those weren’t exported. Those never made it out of France. So, you know, what we find here in the U.S. turn of the century is, you know, we’ve got like two, three brands at the top, the finest absinthes.

Those were the ones that were exported here and every cocktail that you know, that calls for absinthe was created around the top two or three French, Franco Swiss brand. So that’s really, it wasn’t until the U.S. authorities started noting that there was a huge controversy going on in Europe. And so really the U.S. was, you know, that end, the temperance movement was gaining steam by that point. The U.S. finally banned absinthe in 1912 and not, like I say, not because it was causing any problem here.

It was just a cautionary measure at a time when food and beverage regulations were becoming a new thing. And there was definitely a lot of public centered, the pure food and drugs act had just been passed in 1906. And that really revolutionized the food and beverage shape and medicine safety as well. It’s just all part of the time. 

Paul Clarke 

And we also have to think of that in context at that same time. The United States, we’re also just in, you know, we just had a few years ahead before all out Prohibition went into effect. So it was very much kind of the mood at the time to be looking at things at alcoholic beverages, strong drink. And, you know, you mentioned how like some of the, winemakers in France were sympathetic to banning absinthe.

The same thing was true largely in the U.S. when, you know, the brewers, the brewers largely supported Prohibition because they thought, well, they’re not going to ban beer, too, right? They just mean booze. In those intervening years, after, after the ban on absinthe went into effect, we had substitutes on the market, of course. I mean, it tastes delicious. And so you want to have something like that. And I mean, Pernod did very well for themselves pivoting to making a substitute. But while these tasted similar and had similar properties, how did they still somehow miss the mark of being authentic absinthe? 

Ted Breaux

Well, authentic absinthe is something that it’s expensive to produce because it requires equipment, you know, distillation equipment. It requires a ton of botanicals, a ton of botanicals, lots. It requires energy, it requires labor, it requires time. And this is one of the things that J. M. Legendre in New Orleans discovered when prohibition was repealed, 1933. There were these New Orleans cocktails like the Sazerac that suddenly you, I mean, you had alcohol again. But you didn’t have absinthe. And basically, you couldn’t make a good Sazerac. So he was inspired to come up with a substitute. And I’ll go ahead and credit Herbsaint as being really the first absinthe substitute intended to make certain absinthe cocktails possible. But, you know, time wears on.

Then we have the post-war era and we have lots of modernization. We have modernization in the spirits industry. And we have once distilled spirits that became more industrialized and with abbreviated production methods and artificial colors and things like that. Then by the time that the dawn of the 21st century rolls around, it’s just a very different landscape. And by that point, there’s really nothing out there. As far as anything that is artisanally distilled that would be an absinthe substitute, no, nothing. I mean, you’ve got basically the, you know, the standard industrialized fare, but nothing that is a substitute for proper absinthe. 

Paul Clarke

And let’s bring you into the story now. Because as you mentioned, you first started kind of sniffing around in the in the 1990s. How did you get involved with absinthe and going down your own personal rabbit hole of a journey with absinthe? 

Ted Breaux

Well, being from New Orleans, it’s hard to look at New Orleans history, which, you know, seems to be all about food and beverage in one way or another. You encounter absinthe. And of course, you have the old absinthe house on Bourbon Street. The word pops up here and there. And for me, it was a frustration because I wanted to know, yeah. What is this stuff? What is this liquor? How do I get it? And of course, there’s none around.

And when I ask people who I think would know what it was and they say, yeah, you know, it was that green liquor that made people crazy. I was like, “Really?” So what was in it that made people crazy? No one could really come up with an answer. And me being a research scientist where I’m like looking at samples of water for contamination and this is what I do, I mean, I wanted to know what absinthe was. I wanted to know what was in it that made people crazy.

And in 2000, I became the first person to take samples of antique absinthe and subject them to modern science. For me, that was a revelation. And basically, in a nutshell, what I learned, it was just like gin and the Gin Craze, as long as it is properly crafted, traditional absinthe has no deleterious effects aside from the alcohol. As long as it’s properly made, it’s fine. That was always the case.

Paul Clarke

And we like to say in a manner of shorthand that absinthe was legalized starting in 2007, but that’s not totally accurate. How did absinthe’s fortunes change legally and what did it actually mean? 

Ted Breaux

Well, absinthe, you know, originally banned in 1912 and really and then sometime later you had the creation of the FDA and then, you know, over the decades, the FDA modernized food and beverage regulations. And so by the time, like 2006 rolls around, you know, you had the TTB, which controls, you know, all the alcoholic beverages. And basically by that point, absinthe is no longer specifically banned in the law. All the laws have been swept aside, replaced by modern food and regulations. And so it’s no longer specifically illegal, but the TTB controls everything. You know, the way it works in the U.S. is that if you want to bring something to market, you’re guilty until proven innocent.

And with respect to absinthe for us, it was a challenge because when we first created, I first created Lucid absinthe and we petitioned for a formula approval in 2006, you know, the TTB analyzed it. They didn’t even really look at what it was. It just analyzed it. You know, one of their labs came back and said, oh yeah, that passes. No problem. it’s like, well, I mean, okay, great. So here we have, we’ve proven that the liquid is there’s no issue. And it proves what I already know. And that is you can take finest brands of absinthe from the 19th century and put them on the shelves today without violating any laws.

Now the big problem came is when getting anything approved by the TTB is a two-step process versus the formula, then the label. The problem came with the label. And that’s when they just shut the door slammed the brakes and said, no, no, no, we can’t approve this. So for us, it’s absinthe. And so for us, it was like, well, why, I mean, clearly there’s nothing wrong with the liquid. Why can’t you approve this? And they said, well, it’s perception.

And the thing is, I empathize with the TTB in 2006 because in Europe, you had this rash of products that basically amounted to flavored vodka with green dye, with labels that said like things like caution may cause hallucinations sold as absinthe. They didn’t taste anything like absinthe, but who would know? So this was causing big problems in Europe. It was just causing a lot of issues. The TTB didn’t want it here. And you know what? Neither did we.

And so for us, it was, and this was a conversation that a debate and a conversation that dragged on for months. And for us, it was just the challenge of convincing the TTB that we were a credible bunch. We were cocktail nerds, and we wanted to bring traditional absinthe back to the U.S. in a respectable way so that it would serve the purpose that it did. It’s being something that was just a wonderful botanical spirit and something that was a critical ingredient in classic cocktails. 

Paul Clarke

Now you mentioned Lucid and developing this and petitioning the U.S. government, you started distilling your own line of absinthes more than 20 years ago. What kind of potential did you see out there in the world? And did you anticipate this kind of legal change taking place? Did you think you would actually be successful in making your argument? 

Ted Breaux

For me, I knew that there was nothing wrong with vintage absinthe, and I wanted to demonstrate this to the world. I took information from analyzing old bottles, and I used that to more or less reverse engineer original brands. And I traveled around France and finally located a distillery with Gustave Eiffel being the architect for that distillery and all the original absinthe distilling equipment from the 1880s being present. I made a deal with that distillery. And that was the birth of the Jade absinthes, my personal ultra premiums, which I began distilling in January of 2004.

The problem was I couldn’t sell them in my own country and I didn’t know how this would change. I was getting a lot of press and media attention at that time and I was in an article in The New Yorker. And that’s when it caught the attention of some entrepreneurs that would become the founders of Viridian spirits. And basically they made a deal with, Hey, if you will create an absinthe that we can own and use to break the U.S. ban, we will undertake all the risks of doing that. Whether we succeed or fail, we will do that because getting in front of the U.S. government to make some sort of an argument, especially a legal argument is not a small feat.

So I said, you know, this is probably the best opportunity that we’re going to have to overturn the ban on absinthe. And so I made an arrangement with them and together. We went to the TTB that, uh, coordinated, this whole effort was coordinated by Jared Gurfein and myself. He’s a fine lawyer, good legal mind. And it was through that, that we finally convinced the TTB, um, to allow, a genuine absinthe to, to enter the market. That was on March 5, 2007, henceforth known as Absinthe Day, when the, the last country with the, longstanding ban on absinthe finally agreed to wipe away the myths of the past and, and allow for a new beginning marketing absinthe as a respective spirit. As I say there, that was 19 years ago and the rest is history. 

Paul Clarke 

Now in 2007, as you noted, everyone, including Imbibe, was talking about absinthe and writing about absinthe and covering what was going on with absinthe and its role in cocktails. As it became newly available again, as, as this started rolling out into the U.S. market. What kind of response did you see in the bar industry? How much did you see folks turning to some of the classic preparations and cocktails? And how much did you see them striking out on the route with new cocktails, new interpretations and things of that nature? 

Ted Breaux

Well, for us, there were challenges involved because here we were. Um, our intent, our goal was to get Lucid into the U.S. market and in all 50 states as fast as we could, because we wanted the first absinthe in the U.S. to be a genuine product and not something that was, you know, like some of the other stuff that was floating around Europe as artificially colored sugar, you know, stuff with a lot of seductive marketing. So for us, you know, look, and we’re working in a, in a distillery from the 1880s with no automation. So for us, that was a tall order.

Basically we, we worked on getting Lucid in all 50 States. And the thing is, people were buying it just because it was available. And the thing is, is absinthe is not like gin or whiskey. I mean, it really needs to be sold with a, with an owner’s manual, you know, on what to do with it. And you, and you remember at the time, you know, vodka and flavored vodka were all on trend back then. Right. So here you have a spirit that’s, that’s mostly water, you know, which is on trend. And we come into the market with absinthe, which is the polar opposite, you know, really strongly flavored botanical. 

Paul Clarke

It’s a howitzer of flavor. 

Ted Breaux

It’s exactly 150 millimeter howitzer of flavor. And the thing is, the good thing we had for us is that everybody wanted it because it was here. And also because back then the phenomenon that was the Renaissance in classic cocktails or pre-Prohibition cocktails was just beginning to gain steam. You remember you were Tales of the Cocktail back then, as was I, and this was just becoming, you know, this was a, at that time, this was sort of a, a, still a subculture, but, but a national phenomenon that was gradually evolving into a global phenomenon. And the thing is, is absinthe plays a role in that. So we did have that going for us. But yeah, it was challenging times with so many vodkas and flavored vodkas in the market.

You know, now, fortunately, the pendulum has swung to strong flavors, which is great, great for cocktail culture, good for the American market in general. And, you know, another challenge we had is as Americans, us growing up in this country, we are underexposed to the flavor of anise. Whereas in Europe, it’s a very different situation. Even in the UK, it’s a very different situation. The average person to be more familiar with the, more accustomed to the flavor of anise, which for Americans is just something we’re underexposed to. It was a bit of an uphill battle. So that was another challenge. It’s still that way in some ways. There were a bunch of elements, some complementing, some contrasting in this, that whole scheme. For us to weed our way through it and make it work was certainly challenging. 

Paul Clarke

So once the legal framework changed, you had a product out there on the market, everything was cool, right? Everything you see on the market now calling itself absinthe is totally authentic absinthe, right? And yes, I’m setting you up with that one.

Ted Breaux 

Well you know, at the time when we got approved, here’s something that no one knew at the time. And in fact, I didn’t even think about this until not long ago. We were approved. We were on probationary status. TTB said, hey, if you get so much as one lawsuit within a year, we’re going to pull the plug on this, which fortunately didn’t happen. So that’s good. But, you know, for us, being able to get out there in our marketing, you know, make it clear that we don’t use artificial, this is all botanical, 100% botanical, as it should be, with no sugar, no fake colors, and no phony marketing. That really helped us avoid the problems that were happening in Europe around that same time.

Then we had, like, St. George pop in with the first absinthe distilled in the U.S. since the ban. And, you know, and again, that was a quality product. And so we had several quality products foothold here, which did, to a large extent, exclude some of the imposters. So the U.S. had the advantage of having a good head start when the category got launched. It didn’t keep all the fake colored stuff out. I mean, it’s still out there today. But we avoided the problems that happened in Europe. And, in fact, spending a lot of time in Europe and the UK, I did a lot of work to reboot those markets beginning, like, around 2009 to try to get them.

Fortunately, they were influenced by what was happening today. Uh, it’s really interesting how tied together like the UK, European, and U.S. markets are. But, you know, for absinthe, the evolution’s been good. And I’ll tell you, globally, when you look at the category today as compared to what you and I remember when Lucid was launched in 2007, the quality overall is much improved. And consumers definitely have a better selection of quality spirits today than they did at that time. 

Paul Clarke

And so, here we are, almost 20 years later. What’s the absinthe world like nowadays? Has it settled out? Is it stabilized? And where do you go from here? 

Ted Breaux

Well, we had a huge, huge rush on absinthe in 2007 when Lucid was launched. And then we all went through something called the great recession, which was weird. People still drank. They just changed what they drank. A lot of them. And then absinthe recovered. And absinthe stayed. A gradual evolution of absinthe in the market up until Covid. Covid shakes things up. But now there’s a bit of a mini renaissance. And it’s just almost like a generational refresh.

And now that stronger flavors are on trend, you know, you’ve got all these smoky agave spirits. You have the renaissance of like classic Italian, aperitivo, and amaro. Absinthe plays with all this. Absinthe is part of that category being strongly flavored. And people see it now not just as a novelty. But those that are coming of drinking age now, coming into classic cocktails generation after absinthe was launched, view it a little bit and now see it as a spirit that where quality matters.

It’s something that is useful. Certainly useful in the classic, but useful in newer cocktails as well. And so I like this perception change. I think overall it’s a good thing because people who are the newer generation, their perception of absinthe was not so much shaped by mysteries and myths from the past. Like what you and I experienced when I’m by was launched. So things have changed. Yes, it has changed for the better. But, you know, the thing about absinthe is for us, it’s just constant work. And, for me, it’s, I consider myself an educator. I feel like I just carry a responsibility to educate people about absinthe and what it is and what it shouldn’t be and how to use it and how to appreciate it. 

Paul Clarke 

On that note, as an educator, we’re at the end of our conversation here. Is there any final thought you’d like to share with us? 

Ted Breaux 

Wow. Well, I’ll tell you what, you know, being an absinthe distiller and an educator of absinthe was not my chosen career path. It kind of, you know, hey, I’m a research scientist. How did I get into this?

Paul Clarke 

That job description did not exist.

Ted Breaux

No, not at all. No, I would be more like a warlock or something. You know, for me, it’s been a hell of a journey. And it’s been something, I mean, this was not my anticipated career path. It certainly more or less ruined my career as a research scientist, gave me this whole new thing because it just became a full-time career for me. But, you know, I’m appreciative of it because through absinthe, it’s really something that, for me, has been personally enriching. It’s allowed me to meet wonderful people like yourself and people in the spirits community. It’s been something of, I feel like I have a responsibility.

And for me, I feel privileged and proud to be able to be an integral part of bringing something that was so unfairly maligned and something that was so appreciated from the 19th century and an indelible part of classic cocktail culture to return it to its former place of respectability and its position in the bar. And like I say, for me, it’s been a real journey. It’s just been a pleasure and a privilege. And I’ll just keep doing it until I’m not needed anymore. 

Paul Clarke

Ted, thanks so much for taking us down this historical tour. It’s great to get back up to speed. Thanks for everything you’ve done for the category. And it’s so good to talk to you again. Thanks for being on the podcast. 

Ted Breaux 

Good to talk to you again. Thanks for having me, Paul. 

[music]

Paul Clarke

You can find Ted Breaux and his absinthes and other spirits online at jadeliqueurs.com. We’ve got that link for you in this episode’s notes. 

And that’s it for this episode. Subscribe to Radio Imbibe on your favorite podcast app to keep up with all our future episodes. We’ve got tons of recipes and articles for you online at our website, imbibemagazine.com. Keep up with us day to day on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Threads. And if you’re not already a subscriber to the print and or digital issues of Imbibe, then let’s get you on board in celebration of our 20th anniversary. Just follow the link in this episode’s notes and we’ll be happy to help you out. I’m Paul Clarke. This is Radio Imbibe. Catch you next time.