Absinthe is now legal in the US.
Further to my post at the Fee Verte Forum, a few small clarifications:
1. This is based on direct first hand knowledge, not an inference drawn from the activities of Lucid/Veridian. There are, as you’d expect, commercial considerations that preclude me from revealing everything I know, but as and when I can say more, I will.
2. The actual language used is 10ppm (part per million), which is equivalent to 10mg/l.
absinthesizer said,
June 28, 2007 @ 11:03 pm
I’m dying to learn more about this. The idea of going to the FDA - and not to Congress, which has more important things to screw up - was an inspiration bordering on genius. American absintheurs owe Viridian Spritis a debt of gratitude - one that, fortunately, we can easily pay simply by purchasing Lucid. Which is quite good, btw.
Green Devil said,
December 19, 2007 @ 6:34 am
This and many other articles coming out now give the impression that the laws have changed. NO Laws have changed and traditional absinthe is still illegal. These companies have just filtered out the chemical Thujone , found in wormwood so that they can pass the FDA regulations.
More Info
http://www.greendevil.com/absinthe_us.html
The companies offering absinthe in the US are now on a public relations / marketing campaign to give the impression that “Absinthe is now legal” In reality no laws have changed. No matter what impression they give you the finished product is “Thujone Free” according to the FDA. Of course they are downplaying the role of Thujone with some slick “organizations” promoting absinthe in the US. Not sure how the public will take it but they are getting alot of press recently
Oxygenee said,
December 19, 2007 @ 8:26 am
What absolute nonsense Green Devil, and transparently self-serving nonsense at that.
Firstly, I did not say “laws have changed” in my Fee Verte post, I said expressly the opposite:
“4. Effectively, the US regulations are being brought in line with the EU standards. This has been done by administrative fiat (based - to simplify - on an expanded definition of “margin of error” when it comes to thujone testing), not legislation, but the effect will be the same.”
Secondly, thujone cannot be “filtered out” of finished distillate, and your use of this phrase indicates your ignorance of even the basics of commercial distillation. The level of thujone in absinthe can be controlled by several methods, including but not limited to: careful selection of the right wormwood chemotypes; attention to the preparation of this wormwood prior to distillation; adjustment of the quantity of wormwood used in the recipe; variation of the cut-off point between distillate collection and flegmes collection. It cannot be controlled in a commercial environment however by “filtering out” from the final absinthe distillate.
Finally: the absinthes marketed in the US are not “thujone free” any more than the absinthes that comply with the EU 10mg/l thujone limit are “thujone free”. They contain low levels of thujone. Some - not all, but some - of the absinthe sold by the most famous marques of the Belle Epoque had equivalently low levels, and would have been perfectly legal under the new US guidelines.
The link you posted to your site contains no new information, and much of what you’ve written there is hopelessly inaccurate. Here is the truth, supported by first hand testimony and scans of original TTB documents:
http://www.oxygenee.com/absinthe-america/legalization.html
I’m quite confident that readers will be able to make their own judgements about the relative veracity of this page versus the page you linked to.
The kits your company Green Devil so aggressively markets don’t produce a spirit equivalent to absinthe, at least not as defined by ANY Belle Epoque source. Absinthe is a DISTILLED spirit. It can be produced by distillation of whole herbs, or the addition of distilled herbal essences. It cannot be produced by soaking some herbs in a bottle and then filtering out the contents. No one in 19th century France made absinthe like this, for a very good reason: it tastes awful. The only people who’ve ever made absinthe in this style are some recent Czech manufacturers, whose products have no French or Swiss antecedent, don’t taste like traditionally distilled absinthe, and are accordingly considered ersatz by most experienced absintheurs. If this is the type of “absinth” you are trying to imitate, you should say so on your website. Why not sell a mixture of powdered corn, caramel and charcoal dust, and call it Jack Daniels while you’re at it?
Elijah Hinton said,
November 13, 2008 @ 1:19 am
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