UPDATE: Maine Rules Against Low-Alcohol Drink

Updating the story earlier this week in the Marshall County Anti-Drug Coalition blog, the Maine Attorney General's Office has decided that Fentiman's Victorian Lemonade is a type of liquor and can't be sold to minors.

The ruling caps a week of controversy over the British "botanically brewed beverage," which was bought and brought to school by a Houlton, Maine, high school student before he realized there was a bit of alcohol in it. The Aroostook Substance Abuse Prevention Council and the Maine Alliance to Prevent Substance Abuse both took the case to the state's attorney general, saying that it shouldn't be sold to minors.

The company was nonplussed.

"We see it as slightly absurd," a company representative told the Bangor Daily News. She said that the lemonade is so low in alcohol that it would take 28 bottles to equal one pint of beer.

But the substance abuse prevention officials and the Houlton police were happy.

"We are trying to promote a healthy lifestyle and we do not want products being marketed to youth that might affect their health," said Houlton police chief Butch Asselin.