From the bill: “…a person at least 21 years of age may manufacture alcoholic liquor for personal or family use. The aggregate amount of alcoholic liquor manufactured per household may not exceed 10 gallons per calendar year, if there are two or more persons over the age of 21 years, or 5 gallons per calendar year”.
I feel that the only difference between distilling and brewing and wine making that should make a difference in legality is the possible safety risks due to flammability and possible methanol ingestion. I think with the easy availability of information and electric heating components those risks are not that great anymore. I say legalize and smartly regulate.
As long as the substance itself isn’t illegal*, and I’m not selling it**, why should the government care what foodstuffs I make in my kitchen?
Home canning done poorly can kill you, but nobody’s*** out there trying to make pressure canning illegal. The National Fire Protection Association reports that deep fryer fires cause an average of 5 deaths, 60 injuries and $15+ million in property damage each year, but they’re still legal.
I’m not gonna argue for homebrewed meth or fentanyl … some things are Schedule I for a reason.
** The government has a legitimate interest in regulating commerce. No one wants to go back to the pre-FDA days of snake-oil and meat-packing.
The arguments against home distilling usually fall into the following categories: 1) it’s dangerous to make, 2) it’s deadly to drink, and 3) the government’s wallet will be hurt. However, these arguments for preventing home distilling legalization are completely disputable:
Distilling isn’t necessarily any more dangerous than pumping gas at a service station or cooking on a stove top — the same principles apply. Sure, an explosion can occur if distillate comes in contact with an open flame. But similar to pumping fuel for their car, people just shouldn’t be smoking cigarettes while distilling alcohol.
New Zealand legalized distilling in 1996 and the instances of still related explosions and fires are tracked. Compared with household fires started from cooking accidents, according to the statistics distilling is safer than frying up some bacon and eggs.
Even if home distillers somehow forgot to take out the nasty smelling and awful tasting foreshots they would become drunk and pass out long before they would be able to consume enough methanol to sustain any serious injury. By the way, home brewed beer has methanol in it as well. We just don’t concentrate it by separating the water from the other constituents in our beer. Even jacking beer or cider by freeze distillation (i.e. Eisbock, Apple Jack), won’t concentrate the methanol and fusel oils normally removed via heat distillation to a point of methanol poisoning. It’s not any more dangerous than drinking an entire gallon of hard apple cider. Not advisable, but it’s not going to kill you. The same qty of crap is in both. All you’ve done is removed water. Shot glasses are small for a reason. Consume responsibly.
People were/are injured from moonshine by drinking poorly made products often with crude equipment or unscrupulous additives. With today’s safety features, home stills are safe to operate and the product is safe to consume if principles are properly applied. I had a buddy who blew the lid off his pressure fermenter because he didn’t have a pressure release or spunding valve installed. He overlooked tried and true principles and replaced it with Dumb@$$.
I think the real reason home distillation is illegal is in 2020, state and local governments collected ~$7.5 billion in alcohol taxes. If distilling would be made legal, the argument goes that people would just distill their own spirits at home and would spend less or no money on taxed alcohol. I disagree.
As fun, simple, and educational distilling spirits at home might be, like Homebrewing few would actually take up the sport for the same simple reason there are so few home brewers compared to beer drinkers: We live in an instant feedback society. Making bread, pizza, BBQ, beer, pickles, grow a garden, paint the house, or mow the lawn takes time and effort. Today’s society pays for the convenience of someone else to do time consuming tasks. There will be very little to no revenue lost because the average consumer won’t take the time to make their own.
Some of the characters on the TV show Moonshiner’s have been talking about legalizing spirits in their state. Is this news a result of or related to that TV show?
This would be fantastic if it came to fruition. I’d imagine that the average home distiller would be in it for the same reasons that we are into home brewing (creativity, self-reliance, and the whole “maker culture” vibe), rather than producing mass volumes of cheap hooch (which is still rarely as cheap as what you can find in a store). I really hope this movement picks up steam.
for some beers, and for aged distilled alcohol ie. whiskey and stuff. i think commercial ventures actually do have an advantage over homebrewers in a way.
when i make a beer i intend for aging… how much of it actually lasts beyond repeated “test tastes” i have. its simply harder to keep around small amounts of product, knowing you have it, and aging it/waiting for the reward far down the line. im talking about say waiting 3 to 4 years for a whiskey to age in a barrel. obviously that could be shortened with alternative oak products ie. cubes/spirals etc. but i think that would be a challenge for home distillation - waiting long periods to realize you need to make X change.
Totally Plus one–I have distilled both at the home and professional level and the danger is overhyped. I love the analogy that it isn’t any more dangerous than pumping gas. Or, for that matter, handing raw chicken.
I think that the risk of harm is low that a home distiller gets harmed by bad alcohol or explosions but because those are such extreme things the risk seems higher. Humans are really bad at assessing risks in the modern world because we do it with our reptilian brain, which worked well when the threats were predators. People who live in suburbs and rural areas will list “urban crime” as a high concern in polls and not wear their seatbelts.
