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So I stopped off at the Russian guys’ liquor store near my house last night to get some beer. It was about 9:30 or so. I walked in and the two guys were laughing and joking around with another customer, a latin guy. I got a six pack of Heinecken light, and was waiting to ring up. The one Russian guy, not behind the counter, was standing next to me holding a pint of Smirnoff triple-distilled that looked like Goldschlager - had some gunk floating around in it. I squinted at it and said “what’s that in there?” He grinned at me and said “It ees the mari-huana!” And so it was! “Some guy tells me it works, so,” he shrugs, “I try it.” I didn’t bother telling him that what he was trying to imitate was an infused vodka, the effects of which he was most assuredly not going to get by just dumping some weed into a bottle of Smirnoff. 

I looked at the counter guy and he said, in his thick russian accent “We are way too drunk for work! We have absinthe!” And pulls down a big bottle of stuff that they’ve been drinking. Absinthe has been legal to possess, but not to sell, in Massachusetts, for some time. As of a few days ago, it’s now legal to sell it. This, apparently, is what the Russians were celebrating. He joyously exclaims, “We’ve been since today, finish almost two bottles!” He looks to me and the other customer “You try?” I looked at the other customer and we both said “why not!”

Which is how I came to be drinking absinthe, cut with pepsi, with two russian dudes and a latino guy at 9:30 in a liquor store. Not bad stuff at all!