In Ontario Canada, we can buy Absinthe in our liquor stores, made by the original company. However, it has the wormwood missing. But has all the other flavors, color, etc...
Soaking a pack of dried herbs in grain alcohol sounds like a far cry. You could consider starting with the original, add your wormwood from your garden (or not). I noticed you're from NY, perhaps a little cross border shopping is in order
. You may want to order it in advance from the LCBO or check that whatever store you're going to has it in stock, as it's not like we swill huge amounts of it here or anything.
Depending on how fancy and extensive that branch of the liquor store is they may or may not have it in. (In case you don't know, all our liquor stores in Ontario are operated by the government. (those crazy pinko Canadians!
) They're really nice stores, well done, publish an excellent food magazine for free too called Food & Drink so pick one up while you're there).
However this is definitely a "kids, don't try this at home". Really can't say I advise getting that toxic to be blasto, though if you have any internal parasites the wormwood will take care of them too. You could also just drink it without the wormwood. BTW, there are quite a few varieties of wormwood, so make sure you have the right one.
Absinthe is sort of this color.
I wouldn't describe it as nasty as Luc described, if you're used to drinking other spirits, you might like it.
I think you're right about the lead being the problem.
Does vermouth still have the wormwood? My understanding is that that is where the word vermouth comes from -- worm wood.