Nothing is illegal until you get caught. Actually, one of the world bigger distillers is in New Orleans:
But here is some interesting stuff:
A faux-absinthe liquor called Absente, made with southern wormwood (Artemisia abrotanum) instead of grande wormwood (Artemisia absinthium), is sold legally in the United States and does not contain Grande Wormwood. This was the first US approval referring to "absinthe" on the front label; the front label says "Absinthe Refined" but TTB classified the product as Liqueur.
In 2007 the first legally available absinthe has been approved for sale in the US. These brands must pass TTB testing, which is performed by the Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry method [59] and has a margin of error of 10ppm thujone [60]. Thus brands that are under the limit 'officially' don't contain thujone even if in actuality they do. Two brands currently available are Lucid and Kübler, with more to come.
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