There is nothing "proper" about Absinthe. But if you must, first remove everything from the room, pad the walls, floor, and ceiling; have someone lock the doors from the outside. The 'traditional' way of doing absinthe is... First you gotta find yourself a genuine absinthe spoon, probably harder to do than find real absinthe. Its a deep bowled spoon just a bit larger than needed to hold one or two sugar cubes, with narrow slots in it. Any slotted spoon will do , some folks even use a fork. Fill a narrow glass with cracked ice, pour in a shot of absinthe. Put one or two sugar cubes in the spoon, slowly pour very cold water over the sugar so it disolves and runs into the absinthe. There you go now enjoy your wormwood dreams. Some folks think you have to involve fire, using either cubes or just sugar crystals in a spoon , sometimes a quick dunk into the absinthe then set fire to sugar till it just begins to melt or according to some caramalize, then dump it int o the glass, followed by cold water, usually followed very quickly by cold water as the absinthe is usually on fire now. The burnt sugar also changes the color to an unattractive brownish or even olive drab and adds a burnt taste .( which may actually be an improvement, I hate anise) The fire routine is an affectation, and the old time true absinthe addic..uh..drinkers much preferred the slower ritual of disolving the sugar with water. The slowness emphasised the ritual,( just as the ritual is important in using other,mmm, mind altering substances, rolling a reefer, loading a pipe etc.), occupied time that otherwise would have been used in drinking more of the stuff, more water is used in disolving the sugar therefore diluting the strength, and after a few glasses of the green dream machine, the presence of fire is not recommended. Oh, yeah before starting any of that try to adopt an attitude of world weary ennui

The traditional method for drinking absinthe is to pour one ounce (roughly) of absinthe into an empty glass. A FLAT absinthe spoon (An absinthe spoon is not deep-bowled. It's FLAT. Look on eBay.) is placed across the glass, a sugar cube placed atop the spoon, and ice water slowly dripped into the glass, dissolving the sugar. As many absinthes are pre-sweetened nowadays, some find the addition of sugar unnecessary. I suggest trying it both ways. WARNING: Pouring absinthe directly over ice will cause the anethole (a compound present from anise and fennel) to come out of suspension and clump. You'll have little clumped floaties in your drink, and the flavor will be thin-to-non-existent. If you've purchased an "absinth" instead of absinthe, and the bottle suggests lighting it on fire, that generally means it'd serve better use as lighter fluid than a cocktail. This method of preparation was invented as a marketing gimmick by Czech Republic-based producers of undistilled macerates, typically extremely bitter and rather repulsive, who knew that nothing they did could harm the flavor of their product. If you've purchased a quality absinthe, instead, you'll not want to add a caramelized/scorched sugar taste to your expensive beverage. See the absinthe entry in Wikipedia, or www.feeverte.net/faq.html for more info!