Really?

The New York Times had an article on the 12th exposing the recent explosion of cocktail culture.... Wow, they really have their hand on the pulse with this one. I mean really, cocktails? Who has read anything about cocktails recently?

Aside from the redundancy of the piece, I was struck by the picture included. It is of a bartender at the new Apotheke in Manhattan setting up Absinthe drips over flaming sugar cubes. I am quite surprised that a program of that stature would follow this relatively recent Czech tradition. I know it looks cool and all (it must really be crazy in the opium den aesthetic of Apotheke) but I was under the impression that this was total sacrilege. I am no big fan of the Wormwood Society (I ran afoul and scored a heap of vitriol for being photographed with a bottle of an unfavored Absinthe in the foreground) but I will defer to them as far as procedure goes and they could not be more clear that burning is wrong. I think I even saw a 'Friends don't let friends burn the sugar' T-shirt.

I would love to know what is going on there.