This absinthe label does a good job explaining the recent history about absinthe. It explains that absinthe was banned from 1912 until almost 100 years later. More of the story about the legalization of absinthe is here, and the the first 20 or so products approved for US sale are listed here.
Amerique 1912 is distilled by Great Lakes Distillery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is also one of the few absinthes that states “thujone free” on the bottle.
Amerique Absinthe
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Robert C. Lehrman is the principal attorney at Lehrman Beverage Law, PLLC. Robert founded the firm in 2001 after 12 years at the Washington, DC office of a larger firm that specializes in federal and state administrative law. From 1998...... Read Full Bio
As all absinthe in the US is required to be “thujone free” (technically <10 ppm), is there any reason to state it on the bottle? Does it help the label approval?
We designed and submitted the label ourselves. The TTB formula approval indicated that the label must indicate “Thujone Free”. We tried to have this stricken on the grounds that other absinthes that were approved did not have this required wording, but they insisted. Having spent nearly a year trying to get the approval due to other issues we decided the fight wasn’t worth it. Nathan, you are correct that all absinthe in the US meets the “thujone free” requirement- we were just the lucky guys who had to be the first required to state it on the label. Also, don’t know if anyone caught it, but Thujone is mis-spelled on the submitted art. We did correct it on the printed labels.