Can I make whiskey in Florida

Hello,

This may be an old question. I have searched without luck. Does anyone know if it is legal to make whisky or some variant at home? I read the law for Florida and it talks about beer and wine…but nothing harder. Is that the case? You can only make those two legaly? Thanks.

It’s illegal to distill spirits (w/o a license) in the US.

But apparently it’s legal to sell everything for someone to make illegally?

http://www.store.homebrew4less.com/Distillers-and-Parts/products/981/

-J.K.L.

The response I’ve heard to that question is usually “these systems are used to distill water, not alcohol”.

Paul

This is because it is legal to distill spirits for fuel. I beleive there is still federal permits required but they are inexpensive and easy to aquire. This is from research I did years ago but if I recall correctly there is even a federal tax credit for producing ethanol for fuel purposes.

EDIT here is a link to a company that makes home ethanol distillers http://microfueler.com/t-faqpage.aspx#legal

You can also use those systems to distill essential oils from plants.

Depending on the plants, it sounds like that could be a gray area too. :wink:

Nah you don’t need a still for that, just some vodka and an electric stove to reduce the volume after… or so I am told…

Can you make whiskey in Florida?  Yes.
May you make whiskey in Florida?  No.  :wink:

I thought you were supposed to use butter for that, not vodka? :slight_smile:

I think supercritical CO2 is the way to go, actually…

A friend of mine specializes in supercritical CO2, maybe he can send me a system. :slight_smile:

Ha, well put. That takes me back to the first grade

At one of the NHC talks the presenter mentioned that you can get a liscense to home distill - to make fuel.  The fuel must have additives that turn the fuel into a poison.

So it’s OK to make poison at home but not spirits…  ::slight_smile:

Can’t have you selling the non-poisonous stuff and leeching rightful income away from the state. Oh, and won’t something think of the poor blind children who should be getting into Dad’s Chivas Regal? :slight_smile:

I often marvel that homebrewing wasn’t/hasn’t been quashed under the same logic. I know the feds are losing a tiny piece of revenue because of my efforts  8)

I went looking for state tax rates and found this PDF. No wonder Alabama doesn’t want to legalize homebrew – the beer tax in 2009 was $1.05 a gallon.

One of the several reasons that E85 is 15% gasoline is that you can’t drink it. :cry:

I think someone needs to make the point to them that the ingredients for a 5 gallon batch of beer - $20 worth of extract, $20 worth of hops, $15 worth of yeast, so $55 in Montgomery would bring in $5.50 in tax, which is $1.10 per gallon.  Let alone the money spent on equipment.

They won’t know enough to know that those ingredients would make you a strong hoppy beer and you can make other beer for cheaper, let alone all grain and yeast ranching.  You don’t want to overwhelm them with facts and details, they don’t seem too fond of those.

They don’t care what you pay for your beer ingredients, They only care about the taxes they don’t get from it.