I bought a 1/2 liter bottle in London and managed to get it home. I had been reading about absinthe for a long time and I was really excited to finally try some. I mixed it the 'traditional' way with the water poured over the sugar cubes and then I added a little extra sugar because I thought it tasted better that way. It helps a lot if you like the flavor of licorice. It took me about an hour to go through the bottle. This stuff was 150 proof and after an hour I just felt mellowly drunk. (Three hours later I decided the alcohol had caught up with me and I was pretty toasty.) I could speak just fine, walk straight (mostly), and carry on all the normal human functions.
The hallucinogenic effects that I had been hoping for weren't really there. Lights looked really hazy, like they do through a windshield in the rain, and my short-term memory was pretty bad. I actually dropped my friend off at his house and then couldn't figure out why he wasn't in the car. Anyhow, driving was perfectly normal, except for the lights thing, and I had a really good experience. I highly recommend trying this if you can get the real stuff. I havn't tried any homemade, but I'm planning on making a batch just because the real stuff was so good.
