La Valdetra Verte

The La Ptit distillers, with Gaudentia Persoz on the front line have delivered a couple of very nice drinks before. Their flag ship, the La Ptit blanche absinthe, the odd ball clubbers drink with "the tired girl" on the label, the Absinth Love 69 and then there's the very nice Liqueur d'Absinthe. Now they present their first attempt at making a verte, which seems to be the new "it" in the Val-de-Travers.

This new trend in the little Swiss villages also seem to carry the same problem at most of the distillers though - they simply don't know how to color an absinthe. The color of the Valdetra Verte is a very faint tone of green and very transparent. As a couple of other Swiss makers they color it using Artemisia absinthium - not the best herb to use for that task. Sure enough it lends a nice green color if used in combination with more herbs, but it also lends an irritating bitter dry finish which is not desired in a quality absinthe.

Now, that set aside the drink shows a decent complexity in the aroma department and shows really good promise. Then the alcohol breaks through and reminds of the 65% along with a bitter nose. The aroma is more rounded and and with better balance after water is added though and it also presents a licorice scent by then.
The louching is good, as expected and turns the drink into a thick white - more or less the color of any La Bleue. The taste is very much La Bleue with a dry bitter touch to it. I would say that using the correct coloring herbs here and maybe add a bit more wormwood in the initial macerate instead, this could very well be a very interesting drink. As it is now, it's simply not that good. The color is wrong, the nose is off, the taste isn't all that - but... The base of it all seems nice, it's that attempt at coloring it that makes things go wrong. If they keep working on it I'm sure they will manage to get some pretty decent verte out there.