On the legality of distilation.

[xiphias]

In a recent friends-locked post, I mentioned that home distillation of alcohol is illegal in the United States without a special license from the Treasury Department.

Several people commented that, no, it was the selling of alcohol that was illegal without a license.

Y'all are wrong. Guys, it's my job to know this stuff. I've taken a half-dozen courses that have covered the history of distillation worldwide, including the legal issues thereof.

Now, where y'all are RIGHT is that there's no REASON for home distillation of small amounts of alcohol to be illegal. Nonetheless, in the United States, it is.

Why?

Well, you can partially blame George Washington and Alexander Hamilton. Remember the Whiskey Rebellion from history class? That's when this started. 1790.

An excise tax on the distillation of whiskey was instituted, ostensibly, and primarily, as a way to pay off the debt incurred through the Revolutionary War -- but there were a few other reasons, as well. Hamilton also wanted to discourage distillation, as a temperance-type thing -- putting a "sin tax" on liquor in order to encourage wine and beer over hard spirits.

And there was one other effect. Hamilton wanted the Federal government to print and circulate money -- he was behind the United States Mint, and the first centralized bank of the United States.

And, for decades, farmers in the western parts of Virginia and the Carolinas had been taking their excess grain and making into whiskey -- and using the whiskey as currency. Obviously, you could drink whiskey -- but you could also simply use it as a means of exchange. And, if Hamilton wanted a centralized, Federal monetary system, he had to stamp out all competing systems. And distillation was one of them.

So the tax was set up, not on the SALE of liquor, but on its MANUFACTURE. Its intent, both as a sin tax and as a way to eliminate a competing currency, was to impede the independent PRODUCTION of spirits.

In fact, the tax was set up in a two-tier framework. If you made UNDER a certain number of gallons of spirit a year, you paid per gallon. Over that amount, you paid a flat fee, which would be significantly cheaper. This was intended to support industrial production at the expense of independent, home production.

And, just for the record? The cutoff to get into the cheaper bracket?

Pretty much exactly the yearly output of Washington's personal operation.

So, that's why, to this day, there is no legal small-scale home distillation in the United States. The taxes on production are DESIGNED to be prohibitive for personal production, in order to support large producers.

Comments

Well...

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

I thought as much...which has put the kibosh on certain experiments I've thought of making with flower petals, for instance.

I ain't gonna turn any home distillers in to the revenuers, though.

Re: Well...

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

You can distil flower essences legally, so long as alcohol's not involved.

Re: Well...

[403.livejournal.com]

If you extract the essential oil into alcohol (neutral grain spirits, for example) it becomes illegal?

Re: Well...

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

No -- you can have the alcohol already there, because you didn't distil that alcohol.

[ziactrice.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... I thought the current prohibition had more to do with the fact that distillation at home, lacking some way to properly test the amount of dangerous wood alcohol concentration in the final product, could be quite dangerous to one's health, e.g. bath-tub gin style.

[amberdine.livejournal.com]

I would imagine that's the main reason for not lifting the ban.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

That was what I used to think, too, until I did some research into it.

It's possible to make stuff that tastes horrid, that gives truly epic hangovers, and so forth, but getting stuff to drink that leads to actual, real, permanent danger really requires malfeasance rather than simple incompetence. Basically, if you take all the "heads" and "tails", the parts at the beginning and end of the run of the still that contain all the nasty bits, and you store 'em up, you can keep running them through the still to get all the remaining good, tasty, drinkable alcohol out.

Once you get all the GOOD alcohol out, you've got all the poisonous stuff concentrated.

Drinking THAT will cause permanent damage or death. If a moonshiner sells the poisonous stuff as drinkable stuff, to get a couple extra bucks -- I'd call that malfeasance more than incompetence. "Incompetence" means that you've not got all the poisonous stuff out of the run, and it'll give you an amazing hangover. You may WISH you were dead, but you won't ACTUALLY risk death. "Malfeasance" means that you DID get all the poisonous stuff out of the run -- and then sold it.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

You should have bet them some money first.

[fibro-witch.livejournal.com]

So there is a difference between making beer or wine and making hard liquor. I never know that. Gosh your smart.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Not so much smart as going through yet ANOTHER certification which DOES teach me new things, but also goes over this exact thing ONCE AGAIN.

I actually am enjoying the class, but all these certification courses seem to go over the same basic stuff first before you get to the things that you're actually taking the course for.

So. Yeah. This is the sixth time I've learned this stuff. And, yes, It Will Be On The Test.

There are worse fates.

[embryomystic.livejournal.com]

The taxes on production are DESIGNED to be prohibitive for personal production, in order to support large producers.

That's really sad. I mean, I don't know what the laws are like in Canada, and they might be similar, for different historical reasons. I wouldn't know. But the fact that they're intentionally imbalanced in favour of industrial producers is annoying.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

The Canadian laws are, I believe, virtually identical, although the asset forfeiture laws in Canada are less onerous. Once you get a license, legal distillation in Canada is even more annoying than in the United States. I don't know what the historical reasons in Canada are.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I learn something new every day. Fascinating stuff; thanks.

[copperpoint.livejournal.com]

Fermenting your own alcohol is legal though, right? And what about other methods of concentrating the alcohol? Freezing off the water is not distillation. is that legal?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Yes, fermenting your own stuff is legal.

Other methods of concentrating the alcohol? The question is murky at best. I've heard people claim both ways, and I haven't asked an authoritative source.

[dancing-kiralee.livejournal.com]

I would have to say, technically, it's still not against the law to distill alcohol in your home.

It's against the law to fail to pay the excise tax for distilling alcohol (in your home or otherwise) after you have done so.

There's pretty much nothing preventing a rich millionaire hobbiest from doing so, just because he or she feels like distilling alcohol; it's not like he or she couldn't afford to pay a little extra (tax) to pursue their hobby. It would make a lousy investment, of course, but most hobbies aren't investments.

For that matter, it's possible that a middle class hobbiest could do the same thing. How affordable distilling is as a hobby would depend on high the tax is, and, given the tax structure, how many gallons the hobbiest wanted to make.

Kiralee

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Technically, yes, you're right: it's illegal to distil even one drop of alcohol without a license.

However, the licensing process is onerous enough, even BESIDES the tax, to make it extremely difficult to start a new distillery of any size, commercial or not.