Inside Absinthe: Daniel Carlson

I’m new to town, and I like to drink. For reasons I’m not stupid enough to question, 29-95 has decided to pay me (I know!) to bring both of those considerable traits to bear as I explore the city I now call home.
• Read about my past bar trips.

My trip to Absinthe the other night was my first experience with the eponymous drink. It’s not like I’d avoided it in the past or anything. The opportunity just never presented itself, and most of the time my tastes run to simpler things like an ice-cold Fat Tire or a thick glass of Maker’s. But I figured, what the hell. I’m an adventurous guy. I don’t often come to a complete stop at stop signs. I leave the office at 4:50 p.m. I’ll drink whatever’s put in front of me, especially if it’s a specialty drink that’s the bar’s whole focus.

It was terrible. Just: ugh.

The guy next to me at the bar — a drunk lawyer whose words grew more slurred as the evening went on — advised me it would taste like black licorice, and he was kind of right, but there’s more to it. I didn’t know what to expect from the bartender’s presentation. He’d poured some absinthe in a glass, then suspended a sugar cube over the top and doused it with the booze, then tipped it in, then set the whole thing on fire, then extinguished it and passed it to me. The glass was still warm, though the liquor was cool. “Don’t shoot it; sip it,” he advised me, which a good rule of thumb whenever someone hands you something that’s been on fire. So I sipped.Red scary clown room: Daniel Carlson

It wasn’t like black licorice, or it wasn’t just like it. The closest flavor I could compare it to would be bad cough medicine. And really, if you want to cop a buzz off low-grade medication, just stay home with a bottle of NyQuil and do some headstands. It wasn’t one of those drinks that tastes bad to me but at least lets me see the appeal it has to others. It just flat-out wasn’t good.

But the bar itself was great. I arrived in time for happy hour and found it sparsely populated, with Ralph, the bartender and owner, making easy conversation with a couple of regulars. It’s a nice place, done in classy but homey wood and couches, and not nearly as off-putting as you’d expect from a place with no actual signage. I’m serious. It’s just a bland and kind of ugly building on Richmond just east of Montrose, surrounded by houses that have seen better days and sharing a wall with Bowl, which serves mostly salads but also (thankfully) some sandwiches. Ralph owns both, but I don’t get why Absinthe has to be so earnestly nondescript. This isn’t L.A.; it’s okay to know how to get to a bar, and to see the sign as you drive past.

I spent the night listening to the lawyer get looser (sample sentence and pronunciation: “Thereza a difference between assisant anna attaché.”) and act kind of flirtatious toward a sweet girl from east Texas who showed me pictures of her dog, Bacon. Photo credit: Daniel Carlson Dressed down though I was, in a blue hoodie that could use a wash, I didn’t feel out of place in a bar that’s nicer than the dives I tend to frequent. That’s due to the laid-back attitudes of the regulars and the fact that Ralph was easygoing and welcoming, willing to joke a bit but not actually dumping on anyone. I also enjoyed the prices and food on the happy hour menu: I annihilated a mini cheese pizza that didn’t feel that mini, and it was only $3! They also have a fruit and cheese plate, and some other stuff but seriously did you hear me when I said pizza for $3? Because I did.

The only weird part was the bathroom, a small room drenched in red paint and featuring a picture of a demon clown above the toilet. I do not at all want to think about what it would be like to actually be smashed on absinthe and have to pee in the small bloody clown room.

So is absinthe worth it? No. Is Absinthe worth it? Yes. Sure, the bar takes its name from the drink, but it’s got plenty of other things to offer, including great food and a casually classy attitude. I’d be happy to go back, too. Just keep the actual absinthe on the other side of the bar.