Hiram-

Your "organization" has been exposed numerous times as the marketing arm of Ted Breaux & Co. Your comment has no merit whatsoever, and should be treated as spam.

There are no real absinthes in the US, and will not be anytime soon.

Real absinthes of the past contained thujone -- but don't take my word for it. Just three days ago, Dr W. Arnold (University of Kansas) noted the following in the Boston Herald:

"Perhaps to raise the titillation for the current product, and to increase sales, they now claim that the "old absinthe" also had very little thujone in it! Supposedly the current drink has very little of several other terpenoids that were part of "old absinthe" because the current producers have missed the importance of (or intentionally avoided) "steam distillation"...

Source: http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1044126&format=comments

Dr Arnold should know his stuff, since it was he who first tested pre-ban absinthes for thujone and other terpenoids. And guess what he found? Pre-ban absinthe sometimes contained up to 260mg/kg of thujone!

At that time, the self-styled "absinthe chemist" Mr. Ted Breaux was still backpacking in Thailand, the country where he later set up his first "absinthe" distillery (no, his PR people are not pushing this message). The "traditional" Made in Thailand :-) absinthe didn't sell much, obviously. Since then, an intense PR campaign has been underway, promoting the deceptive no-thujone message.

The Reason Magazine (reason.com) also recently noted: "Even as (they) emphasize Lucid's negligible thujone content, the drink's manufacturer tries to capitalize on absinthe's reputation as a forbidden potion with the slogan, "Prohibition is finally over!"...

To my knowledge, there are only two absinthes in existence that contain anywhere near pre-ban levels of thujone (100+ mg): King of Spirits Gold and Century Absinthe. Of these two, King of Spirits Gold does not follow the traditional distillation method (it's an oil mix), so we are left with Century Absinthe as the only absinthe that resembles the pre-ban ones.

Neither of the two, nor any other genuine absinthe, will make it to the States anytime soon. For the real deal, you have to travel to Europe or have it shipped over. Yes, possession and importation for personal use is legal.

Hope to have clarified the issue. There is an ongoing debate regarding this among the absinthe community, with many people unhappy about Lucid's marketing tactics. Just Google "lucid absinthe" for more -- skip the official site and the (paid for) press coverage, and you will find plenty of blogs and forums where this is being discussed.