Absinthe can now be legally sold in this country, as long as it stays inside some rules, which is how we now have our first legal brand in this country: Lucid. It’s decent stuff—not the best I've had, which happens to be in a few bottles that I’ve smuggled back from France over the years—but we’ll soon have more brands on the market.

Great Absinthe is a wonderful thing. No, it doesn’t make you crazy or hallucinate. It’s restricted legality is due to the fact that some die-hards finally were able to prove to the TTB that authentic absinthe doesn’t contain significant amounts of dangerous chemicals.

I’ll have much more on this in a forthcoming issue of 7x7. In the meantime, I thought I’d print the recently issued ruling from the TTB, so you can get a handle on what I’m talking about, as well as a link to an excellent article explaining more on the subject.