Is absinthe legal in the United States?

What the rule says

The federal agency that approves liquor labels, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, set the rule in a circular dated October 16, 2007. A spirit can use the word absinthe on its label only if it is "thujone-free," which the bureau counts as less than 10 parts per million of thujone. Thujone is the compound in wormwood that the old scare was built on.

The same circular puts three limits on the label. "Absinthe" cannot be the brand name or part of it. The word cannot stand alone on the label. And the art "may not project images of hallucinogenic, psychotropic, or mind-altering effects."

When it was banned

The United States shut absinthe out with Food Inspection Decision 147, which took effect on October 1, 1912. For the next 95 years it could not be imported or sold across state lines. The story of how that happened, and of the dog experiments behind it, is in Wormwood on trial.

Is today's absinthe the real thing?

Close to it. In 2008 a German state laboratory tested absinthe from sealed bottles made before the bans and found thujone levels in line with absinthe made now. The 10 part per million test catches very little of what a normal absinthe contains, which is why the old recipes could come back. More on that in Does absinthe make you hallucinate?