Butterfly Boston Absinthe

An old-school Absinthe with a decidedly American twist.

Butterfly Boston Absinthe was originally made in the Dempsey Distillery on Merrimac Street in Boston Massachusetts. But that was back in 1902 — just before the ban which took all Absinthes off the market in the entire civilized world. A local Boston historian named Brian Fernald found an empty antique bottle, dug up the patent application, and found the original Dempsey recipe book. And he used these to recreate Dempsey’s famous butterfly with production outsourced to Claude-Alain Bugnon — one of the most famous producers in Switzerland.

Butterfly Boston Absinthe follows a traditional Swiss baseline recipe for verte (green) Absinthe with an American twist. The macerations include locally grown grande wormwood, petite wormwood, hyssop, melissa, and peppermint along with imported anise, star anise, fennel, and citrus. The additional mint and citrus influences yield brighter aromatics over the traditional herbal and anise notes of most Absinthes. It is made isn strictly limited production and bottled at a blistering 65% ABV (130 proof) — so it will stand up to any cocktail in your recipe book.

Smartass corner:
Butterfly Boston Absinthe has a stronger mint influence. Peppermint is a hybrid between watermint and spearmint, and melissa — sometimes called lemon balm — is an herb in the mint family with a lemony-minty aroma.