As a marketing scheme it is risky but evidently effective: Hang your hat on a premium product with a past so intriguing and at times dark that people will flock to your door. Or in the case of absinthe, to your distillery where you happily dispense limited quantities of the once-banned elixir to the devoted, the macabre, the well-heeled and the curious, all at a high price. In this case that works out to $75 for a 750ml bottle of the St. George Verte that is made in Alameda.

Dylan Thomas and a long list of others found their end in whiskey, but absinthe has an even more unmistakably European cachet to it. Pablo Picasso painted “The Absinthe Drinker,” Degas painted “L’absinthe” and the ever-quirky (and at the time possibly hallucinating) Vincent Van Gogh supposedly took a knife to one of his ears while under the influence of this innocuous looking green liquid, which turns milky white when a touch of water is added. In perhaps the most understandable of all instances Ernest Hemmingway had a glass or two of the liqueur before running with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain. Perhaps the only way most people would be crazy enough to put themselves in front of half-a-ton of very angry horned beef on the hoof.

For these and other transgressions real and more often imagined, absinthe has been banned from the homes and liquor stores of this country for close to a century. A very selective version of Prohibition, one might say, and one that has just recently been repealed.

All of this is about something that is based on the properties of a medicinal herb called grand wormwood, a profoundly bitter substance that, in the St. George version, is infused into grape brandy in the first step of the process, along with anise and fennel. In the next step tarragon, lemon balm, hyssop and other botanicals (plus a less bitter version of grand wormwood) are infused into what comes out of the still, and after some more manipulation and mixing, the result is absinthe.

While there are numerous other absinthes on the market (from Brazil and Western Europe) the one making the biggest splash these days is from St. George Spirits, which is primarily known as the maker of the Hanger One line of vodkas. It is at this Alameda facility that Lance Winters, who has been working on his absinthe project for more than a decade, has finally refined his version of the product. Even more daunting than the chemistry has been the licensing and approval process.

As any local winemaker can attest to, mention the words federal government and alcohol in the same sentence and you know that there is going to be a long road to go down. Yet Winters and St. George persevered, and last month the first bottles of their version of this once forbidden distillate appeared on store shelves and in restaurants. With an initial production of only 3,600 bottles it will be tough to find, but it is out there.

Is all of the work worth it? Has overcoming the infamy of a history where absinthe was alleged to have caused suicides, insanity and most famously a 1905 murder in Switzerland been a worthwhile cause? Can anything championed by Picasso and Hemingway actually be good for you? Is its reputation as a hallucinogen actually deserved (well, no, it’s not)? And how bad (or good) is it for you?

Like anything with a high alcohol content, if you drink too much of it and cut off your own ear you can hardly blame the drink (or the knife). Down enough wine coolers and you would probably do the same. And in any event Van Gogh was also a very unhappy schizophrenic, so one could conjecture that had it not been absinthe it could just as well have been almost anything else. The fact that absinthe has, at 120 proof or more, a significantly higher level of alcohol than most spirits probably just made the whole affair that more expedient.

That said, what does a person do with absinthe? The classic version is simplicity itself. You can have it straight, like an eau de vie or a grappa; or it can be diluted with a small amount of water and, if desired, a sugar cube can be sunk down into the liquid. Sipping is the key. Downing absinthe in one shot is ill-advised, to say the very least.

As Scott Beattie, master bartender at Cyrus in Healdsburg, and one of the most respected masters of the bar in the country, said, “I really like serving absinthe with a little piece of ice and a small pitcher of water. I like to watch it cloud up in the glass.” In a perfect world, one’s judgment should not immediately follow.

The Traditional Sazerac Cocktail

1 sugar cube

3 dashes Peychaud’s bitters

2 ounces rye whiskey

1/4 teaspoon absinthe

Strip of lemon peel

Pack a 3-1/2 ounce Old Fashioned glass with ice. Moisten the sugar cube with just enough water to saturate it, add to a cocktail shaker and crush then add the rye and bitters and shake. Add a few cubes of ice to the shaker and stir (not shake). Discard the ice from the Old Fashioned glass and pour in the absinthe. Coat the inside of the entire glass then pour out the excess. Strain the whiskey into the Old Fashioned glass and then twist the lemon peel over the glass so that the lemon oil shoots onto the surface of the liquid. Rub the peel over the rim of the glass then discard the peel. Serve.

Death in the Afternoon

A favorite at St. George Spirits

1 oz. St. George Spirits Absinthe Verte

5 oz. chilled Champagne

Pour absinthe into a champagne flute, top with chilled Champagne and serve.

Sacred Heart Cocktail

Absinthe Brasserie & Bar, San Francisco

1 1/2 oz. La Pinta pomegranate tequila

3/4 oz. Kübler absinthe

1/2 oz. lemoncello

1/4 oz. fresh lemon juice

Lemon twist

Shake all ingredients together with ice and double strain through a traditional and then fine sieve into an ice cold martini glass. Garnish with a lemon twist and serve.

Scott Beattie’s Handy Sazerac

Cyrus, Healdsburg

Rinse a mixing glass with 1⁄4 ounce absinthe. Discard absinthe. Shake three dashes Angostura bitters and three dashes Peychaud bitters onto one piece of rock sugar, place in the mixing glass and muddle, then add 1 1⁄2 oz. Thomas Handy Barrel Strength 132 proof rye whiskey. Stir together for 15 seconds without ice.

Drain mixture into a small frozen Old Fashioned glass. Twist a 3 inch by 1/5 inch piece of lemon zest (Eureka or Meyer lemons work well) over the drink so the essential oils are sprayed onto the surface. Garnish with a 3 inch piece of lemon zest and serve.