Pastis: Green Fairy With Clipped Wings

I've just spent a semester and a half in the front lines of pre-med, and have, with an eye to objectivity and falsifiability, observed the following: alcohol tolerance and social savvy are inversely proportional to scientific know-how. Having made the whiplash switch from English to the hard sciences, I've especially noticed this in myself. The better I become at figuring torques, the worse I become at parties--cagey when sober, and after 20 minutes and as many ounces, belligerently drunk. What to do? Terrified that my people skills are permanently flagging, I've spent the past week outlining a program to get myself off the wagon in a genial sort of way.

To successfully put my program into effect, I need to think about technique. This is really a matter of pacing--I should build slowly, spend whole afternoons sipping leisurely to readjust my liver's expectations. That brings me to step two, choosing my poison. First off, it should be made for unhurried savoring. In the next place, it has to be cheap because I don't have a job. And finally, I need to drink something sufficiently cool to impress my friends, who mostly major in philosophy. Judging from my one course in literary theory, that means it should be obscure, French, and off-putting to the average American; if possible, its pedigree should be spiked with scandal.

If you hadn't already guessed, all this leads inevitably to pastis. Pastis is a class of anise-flavored spirits from Provence and the Côte d'Azur, a fact that takes care of obscure and off-putting--French--in one fell swoop. As for the scandal, pastis is descended from absinthe, a scourge of a drink outlawed in France in 1915--far later than in most industrialized countries--having been held responsible for slayings, maimings, madness, and general public decline. The reportedly culpable ingredient in absinthe is oil pressed from the wormwood plant (Artemisia absinthium), and while this is left out of pastis, the two drinks are otherwise strikingly similar.

Pastis is also the official drink of old Provençal men playing boules, which means that you should enjoy it idly, taking your time in a way that approaches sloth: add a couple cubes of ice to a tall glass, fill it a third of the way with pastis, top with water, and fritter away an entire afternoon with slow, unconcerned sipping. Since a good bottle of pastis (Ricard, Prado, Pernod, Granier, and Henri Bardouin are all recommended, and available from most well-stocked liquor stores in Manhattan) rarely goes for more than $20 and tap water is the traditional mixer, it's also easy on those ever-tight student purse strings.

If all goes according to plan, pastis should make for a mellow, drawn-out pre-game to an evening of hard drinking and Plimptonesque social success. I recommend it to anyone who counts their chem book among their dearest possessions.