8
Absinthe
by De Atramentis

 

An absinthe-scented ink is surely a shoo-in for one of the slots in the top ten decadent inks. The color is an eye-watering green that evokes the bright, gem-like color of neat absinthe. If there is a down side, it is that absinthe basically smells like, well, just aniseed. There is no equivalence between the smell of absinthe and the effects of consuming it, and no one has yet figured out how to make the scent as risky as the drinking of it.

 

Plus of course there is still no way to put a scent on line, you'll just have to imagine it. (And the scent fades, too, on paper.)

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But the place of absinthe in decadent culture makes it impossible to ignore the potential of this ink.

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There is no shortage of wonderful quotes to illustrate the central place of absinthe in fin-de-siècle culture, but I've opted for a classic: Flaubert's "Dictionnaire des idées reçues."

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