A U.S. appeals court on Friday declared unconstitutional a nearly 158-year-old federal ban on home distilling, calling it an unnecessary and improper means for Congress to exercise its power to tax.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled in favor of the nonprofit Hobby Distillers Association and four of its 1,300 members.
They argued that people should be free to distill spirits at home, whether as a hobby or for personal consumption including, in one instance, to create an apple-pie-vodka recipe.
The ban was part of a law passed during Reconstruction in July 1868, in part to thwart liquor tax evasion, and subjected violators to up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Man, a lot of people here just repeating the same old myths and police lines about moonshine making you blind and stills exploding. Not to be that guy but do some research.
Methanol poisoning is hugely overstated, sugar and grain mash don’t produce enough for it to be dangerous. Fruit mash can, but it’s easy to mitigate. Most cases of methanol poisoning are either the person purposefully drinking methanol or from alcohol that’s been adulterated with it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_methanol_poisoning_incidents
Stills can start fires, if improperly operated, but so can gas hobs and we’re not calling for a license to operate those. You really need to be making industrial quantities at pressure for it to explode. Looking at it as a cause of fires in countries where it’s legal indicate that it’s a non-issue. If you’re worried about forest fires, don’t make it so people need to hide in the woods and they’ll do it at home.
The danger comes from the distilling, which concentrates the miniscule methanol to dangerous levels. When I learned distilling, I was taught to throw away the first half cup or so to reduce methanol. In reality, methanol has a lower boiling point than ethanol, so you get mostly methanol in that first few shots due to the still warming up, but overall it’s negligible. In a well controlled environment, it’s technically possible to separate the two via this fractional distillation, but it’s not something those early moonshiners really knew about.
In summary, I see home distillation in the same light as picking wild mushrooms: you really have to know what you’re doing. As always, regulation and education is the answer here.
I see a moonshine arisin
The comments in this thread make it sound like it’s super dangerous, its not and you have to fuck up so much to blind yourself or blow up.
iirc methanol and acetone both have a boiling point much lower than ethanol, so I think one would learn really quickly to discard the first little bit of distilled product, because it’d be nasty as hell. I never tried distilling but the issue seems like it’d fix itself, right?
Yeah. The main reasons why it doesn’t blow up, is that it stinks so hard you can’t possibly ignore it and you have to ensure good ventilation.
The main reason why you won’t go blind is because the antidote for methanol is ethanol.
When you hear about methanol poisoning causing blindness it’s usually some morons drinking purified methanol.
Y’all know the risk of home distillers blinding themselves via methanol poisoning is way higher than the risk of them blowing themselves up, right?
You know the treatment for methanol poisoning is ethanol? As long as you’re tossing the fore shots and not putting them into a sour mash you’re fine.
Only if you use fruits. Grain or sugar has very little methanol when fermented
That’s actually a myth, grain and sugar mash produce very little methanol, way below the harmful amount. Fruit mash can produce harmful amounts, but can be easily mitigated. Most cases of methanol poisoning are from people purposefully consuming it or from alcohol that has been adulterated with methanol - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_methanol_poisoning_incidents
K, now make any and all drugs legal
5th Circuit
It’s nice to know how to feel about a ruling before you even read the actual opinion.
This is the rare occasion where they actually got a ruling right, for once.
Ugh, fine I’ll read it.
Uh oh, I guess I should too, then. I was just going by the headline, but I realize that it’s possible that the court came to the right conclusion for the wrong reasons.
Wait, in the land of the free home distilling is illegal?
Not really, we have “laws” and as long as you weren’t making money no one cared , we have TV shows of people in a competition with home distilleries, this is basically just fixing a outdated bullshit law from 158 years ago
So long as they’re doing it for personal use and being safe enough to not blow up the neighborhood, I don’t care. If they wanna sell for others to consume then obviously that’s a whole other thing.
My dad makes what I would describe as moonshine or vodka or something like that every year at home. We’re in the EU though. I always found it odd it’s illegal in the US
Here’s a video on how to make moonshine.
Popcorn Sutton: This is the last dam run of likker… https://youtu.be/glQjCKAI4gA
Does this ruling nullify state law bans on home distillation?
Nice bit of good news if it does.
Not likely.
Eliot Ness was unavailable for comment.
My GGF was a metal worker. He would make the stills, disassemble them and sell them with clear instructions how to reassemble.
