I had also heard raves about it, and that it isn't available because it's in such high demand, but it's always in stock at 2 of the 3 LFS I go to regularly.
What we do where I work is give out gravel from a 50G feeder fish tank. We just give it out; it's cheap enough to replace and it gets the begginers to think, "wow, these people are really nice and know what they're talking about." and they come back.