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.
Probably clearer if i wrote: “the cost OR barriers to entry are very high”
A cheap liquor still off the shelf is like $300, which is definitely not impulse buy territory IMO and before even getting to this point you’d have to have done at least a trivial amount of research to have learned how to distill and what machines to look at in the first place.
Alternatively, they could build their own. But that would require doing an extensive amount of research on how to build a still, which in turn would end up providing you with a bunch of safety information regardless.
This is definitely not common knowledge.
I still wouldn’t say they’re very high. My grandpa built one out of scrap and rubber tubing back in the days of communism in my country. $300 was a fortune noone could even dream of at the time, while alcohol was “sort of currency”.
Moonshining back then was extremely common even if it was illegal.
I don’t consider watching bunch of YT tutorials or equipment that can literally be home made to be an any sort of meaningful entry barrier.