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On New Years in San Francisco I saw something that I didn’t expect to see being openly served at the bar: Absinthe.

Back in the 1990’s, absinthe was all the underground rage. You couldn’t buy the stuff legally. Like marijuana, it was only available if you knew a guy who knew a guy who was willing to sell some to you at ridiculously high prices. You could even get busted for possessing the stuff. But oh, when you got some it was heaven. Except when it tasted like paint thinner. Which was most of the time.

Back then the Absinthe available was either brought into the United States from Europe (making it expensive) or bootlegged here in the United States (making it taste like crap).

The FDA recently made Absinthe legal again and now it’s being served in bars for approximately $10 a drink and sold in some liquor stores for around $75 a bottle.

One liquor store in Santa Rosa began selling it last week. Forty people waited in line before the store even opened to buy a $90 bottle.

Absinthe was banned in the U.S. in 1915 because it’s made with wormwood, a root that contains thujone. Thujone has long been considered to cause hallucinations. Famous artists, Van Gogh and Picasso, were reportedly fans of absinthe.

Wormwood is a long-lived plant, with greyish-green leaves and the flowers have a greenish-yellow tint, and like leaves give off a strong aromatic odor and are bitter to the taste.

Thujone is a toxic chemical present in wormwood and has a similar molecular geometry with THC, the active chemical in cannabis.

In 1996, Ted Breaux, a chemist from New Orleans and one of the prime movers in the absinthe revival, has developed Lucid, a real absinthe made with real wormwood that can be legally sold in the United States.

For several years, Breaux has been working with a French distillery, faithfully reproducing a number of classic absinthes based on chemical scans of the contents of vintage bottles. The scans accord with recent research and contradict the traditional theory that thujone is absinthe’s magic ingredient.

“When I tested bottles of vintage absinthe,” he says, “I was surprised to find they contained very little thujone.”

Many of the Eastern European imports, spirits with strange neon colors, advertise “ultra-high thujone” levels in some of their products, no doubt figuring that if thujone is grounds for banning, it must be a selling point.

Breaux has no respect for these colorful wannabes.

“If a maker or seller has to depend upon promoting myths and misinformation about thujone to sell a product, that is a fairly reliable indicator that said product is sorely lacking in quality and authenticity,” he says.

Earlier this year, the FDA decided to allow regulated absinthe. Three products are now available in the U.S. and have sold out quickly. This suddenly legal absinthe is a little less potent than its European cousin, but it still packs a 62 percent alcohol punch.

Lucid Absinthe is Ted Breaux’s creation which is based on the traditional, French-made Absinthe Verte (Green Absinthe). Lucid is produced in France for the Viridian Spirits Company of New York using traditional French methods.

Kubler Absinthe is absinthe made by Yves Kubler, the fourth-generation distiller of Swiss Absinthe Superieure Kubler, who got permission to import his product after five years of haggling with the U.S. government (the turning point was when the Swiss embassy intervened). All the while, he says, he refused to tweak the recipe from what his family produced in 1875.

St. George Spirits Absinthe Verte is one of the first true absinthe spirits to be available in the US, and is made right here in the Bay Area. In fact, it’s distilled by the same folks who make Hangar One Vodka (which, I can personally attest, has crazy-making powers of its own).

See how Absinthe is prepared in the video below:

Absinthe Lollipops

litabsinthe.com is now selling absinthe lollipops.

They are made with absinthe, sugar, corn syrup. There is no alcohol in them, so you won’t get drunk. However, they do contain wormwood (which, in turn, contains thujone), so each of our lollies will essentially make you feel as though you’ve taken half a shot of absinthe sans alcohol. Meaning that they go especially well with cocktails.

The major flavoring agent in most absinthe is anise, which tastes similar to licorice. If you’ve tried absinthe in the past and didn’t like it, remember that not all absinthes taste the same in the same way that not all bourbons taste the same. If you haven’t tried absinthe before, then our lollies are a fantastic way to make its acquaintance.