Has anyone had a real mauresque recently?

Absinthe has a fascinating history. Here’s a fun place to start:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absinthe

The variant with Pastis instead of absinthe is a classic in Provence. It was one of my go-tos when I used to live in Marseille (until late 2018). Here in Paris most waiters would know what it is, but it is still not that common.
Never had absinthe, which only recently came back to France after a decades-long ban.

Yes, balso! I've been jazzed by the return of many nearly lost liqueurs in the last decade or so, not just absinthe but also quinquina and obscure vermouths. Many of them are actually new small distilleries, like the French Swiss outlet Tempus Fugit (that makes L'Aero d'Or and several others) or megacorporations that bought the rights to old names/houses and puts out an 'updated' version of old drinks that really were on the borderline between 'medicinal purposes' and leisure use.

This is true of other kinds of concoction and tonics besides those we drink -- see, for example, Eduard Pinaud's hair tonics, which were bought up by the Clubman brand. In Victorian and Edwardian England, the fashionably turned out settler colonialist would have anointed his hair with Pinaud's products or another variation on Macassar oil that had some of the same fragrances and infusions as the liqueurs of the age..

Tried absinthe while visiting Auvers due Oise and the Absinthe museum. That is the small town where Van Gogh and his brother are buried and where he died.

Yes it's very fascinating. Especially the part about the special "spoons" used to drip water thru a sugar cube into the Absinthe to dilute it.

We also got to taste it. Honestly, pond water was pretty much the opinion I came away with.