h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have died and gone to heaven. You are all my family, my true family.
I love you all.

We love you too.

And then of course there is methylated spirits. Only drink it clear, the colouring agents are quite nasty although if you are blind, really blind not blind drunk, it shouldn't affect you too badly

It's Tequilla!!!
It makes you happy......da da da da di da da.....
Or is that.........."It makes you sick,it smells like shit,it gets you pissed!"

At least tequilla makes Mexicans lively - more than what Bud does to people further north in the Americas

£6 a shot in Fibbers in York, UK.
Though I've been in a bar in London where they had "Absinthe without leave", five slammers for £15, including Absinthe and Tequila, all to be done in 30 seconds.

I have just purchased a bottle of Hill's Absinth from a mate of mine who's just been to the Czech Republic. This cost twelve quid. 'Bargain!' I thought, 'that's cheaper than Tequila!'

(mmm...Tequila....)

I have come to the conclusion that it's all a myth, the recipe for Absinth is ...

half bottle of Lysterine
half bottle of vodka
half bottle of something really nasty

Only joking! Although I personally would not drink Absinth for pleasure, it is definitely for combat or competition use only.

hill's absinthe does tend to look like ariel ultra liquid. believe it or not, if you mix it with orange juice (!!) it =does= actually taste more palatable. you can get it in the uk, but one off licence in soho is charging £50 for a one litre bottle. at that rate it'd be cheaper and more fun to go to lovely prague.

as for extra-strength alcohol, the off licence in selfridges does a variety from around the world, including polish grain vodka at 95%.

but if you wanna get drunk without mixers, you're better off slammin' shots of tequila (no lemonade!)

Pardon me if i am repeating but i clicked striaght to the bottom. Hills absinth is available on the internet at roughly £40 a bottle. Personally I found it rather unhallucigenic, palatable and while strong rather "manufactured". If you want to try the proper spirit, try a pure malt, from Islay, from the lagavulin distillery.

Í'm dreadfuly sorry, but though Lagavulin is a very nice whisky indeed and it will get you where you want to go, that's not what this forum was going for, was it? It was a most interesting forum, specially when all the absinth experts popped out of their daytime lairs... good job.

Now I´m going to France in a short while, and coming from the Neths I will combine two of the nicest things. Mushrooms and hillside. Dutch Shrooms and French hillside. I'll gettem over the border, sure thing.
Will comment on experience. Invite you all to read Journal after completion of Trip.

I would just like to point out to the person from Peterbourogh that yes, he can get it - but as well as the price, it frankly tastes like someone's grandmother deep-fat-fried in dung.

----Maestro-----

There are tons of recipes out and about on how to make your own absinthe--and wormwood is not terribly hard to come by. There are even some kits sold out there--here's the url for one (never tried it myself, but seems decent enough. They have a nice page.)

http://www.basementshaman.com/basementshaman/abmakkit.html

A mate of mine has just come back from a Business trip in Parague, and he brought back two bottles at £4 each!!!! Bonza!

Unfortunately the absinth you get in the UK has had the wormwood taken out of it (it wouldn't be legal otherwise) so you might end very pissed but you won't get hallucinations from it.
If you did manage to get some with wormwood in then I think the standard is 1 glass=very pissed, 2 glasses=paraletic, 3 glasses=hallucinating.

I wouldn't recommend doing a fourth.

No

Possibly the best drink ever was invented by my good self for a party that I was throwing (no, don't laugh, read on...) This is germane to the current forum because the drink is
a) Green
b) Hallucinogenic
c) Strips varnish
The recipe is as follows:
1) Distill a large quantity of 'pure' alcohol (well, the 95-odd percent that is the best that is physically possible). In my case I use a pressure cooker, a selection of purloined chemical apparatus, and a surfeit of home-made wine.
2) Triple-distill to remove the methanol (first fraction, makes you blind etc) and the poisonous yuck (most of the last fraction(s), make you vomit and/or die).
3) Pour into a large jar so that it is half full.
4) Stuff the jar full of large fresh cannabis leaves.
5) Sit around for a week, doing what comes naturally, occasionally swishing the jar around and marvelling at the colours.
6) Remove the sadly denuded bits of twig that are all that remain of the leaves. Filter the virulent green liquid into a convenient clear glass container.
7) Drink very, very carefully.

Forget Bacardi 151, forget tequila, even foget Absinth. Try Stroh Rum it comes in 38%, 56% and the mother of all drinks 80%.
Stroh ' 80 ' as it is proudly labeled will take your head off and is as close to a pan galactic gargle blaster as you are going to get without delving into the alcohol / narcotic grey area, such as true absinth which i have never tryed.
It is possible to buy Stroh ' 80 ' in holland (where i live) but i'm not sure about England.
For a 100ml bottle (enough) it costs 9 guilders or 3 quid.
for a 700ml bottle (silly) it costs 30 guilders or a tenner!!!
Here are some things to try if you can get hold of some.

Adventurous - Spear - Stroh and Beer - 1 pint with 1 cap of stroh " 80 "

Daft - Stroke - Stroh and Coke (the drink not the illicit substance)

Ridiculous - Stroll - Stroh and Red Bull (Interesting buzz from the energy drink!)

Positively F*****g mad - STRAIGHT STROH - I've done it and lived if thats any consolation, try anything once.

Not even on a sanity scale - Try mixing it with another spirit. my lips are sealed on what happens.

If your not an insane petrol drinker like everybody in this forum go to a good Irish bar and ask for a Black and Tan (Guinness and Kilkenny) Got me pissed last night. If you are hovever a fellow petrol drinker go to the same bar and ask for a Potchine (spelling anyone?) Illeagal Irish potato Whisky weighing in at 96%!!!

"potchine" is how it's pronounced, "poteen" is how it's spelt. it's actually no longer illegal in some parts of the world -- they relaunched it in the uk about the same time as absinthe but i've never tried it. there's an offie by greenwich station (in london) that imports it. before it was legalised it was basically moonshine -- alcohol made from potatoes. try mixing up yer mash with that!

Speaking of moonshine (and I have another entry here somewhere that deals with a useful, green and psychedelic way of preparing it) I just thought I'd mention that the best moonshine that I have ever sampled was in southern Norway, where they REALLY know how to do it properly.
BUT
My craze of the moment is the Sambuca Volcano. It ain't moonshine, it ain't hallucinogenic, but it gets you free drinks and very drunk (and also blisters, but let's not be negative, huh?)
Instructions:
1) Dim the lights.
2) Kneel on the floor.
3) Fill the mouth with one measure of Sambuca.
4) Swill it around until all your buccal membranes are coated.
5) Get a friend (or preferably the owner of the restaurant or bar) to light the Sambuca in your mouth.
6) Gargle impressively.
7) While the Sambuca is still alight, swallow.
8) Acknowledge applause, accept free Sambucas.
9) Repeat.

Purely in the interests of research, I have this evening sampled about half a bottle of Hills absinthe purchased in Prague for a measly £8. It started off tasting like a cheap cough medicine, but then rather rapidly metamorphosed into an extremely tasty beverage that I craved more and more until I was forced to leave the house to the seductive bottle, in search of water and sanity. I wandered aimlessly from bar to bar, sampling a number of Islay malts including a rather splendid 19 year Lagavulin, but the lure of the green nectar eventually dragged me home, a wide inane grin plastered across my face. Hey, this forum has changed my life!
*Please bear in mind that this text was written utterly under the influence of absinthe.