Is The Absinthe That Is Now Legal In The U.S. ‘real’ Absinthe?

This is a question that we often encounter and involves both wormwood and thujone, the active ingredient in wormwood. Thujone’s alleged effects and its banning by most European countries were by popular vote, based on bad science.

Since so much misinformation still exists (and frankly thrives), we’d like to post this in-depth explanation around the science of thujone in absinthe for your reference. It has become our go-to response for people who’d like more science in their explanation.