Why is it illegal to make your own hard alcohol at home?

[jtvang125]

My mother in law brews her own liquor all the time. Haven't tried it but my brother in law says it's easily 100 proof or more.

 

[daveshel]

Originally posted by: HotChic
1. Danger of the home brewing process: it may just be your property but an explosion or fire is not necessarily going to only affect you. (If nothing else, your insurance company would probably be less than thrilled.)

2. Danger of the home brewing product: if you go sharing your result and a bunch of people go blind you've got all sorts of fun reprecussions.

Nobody regulates people cooking their own chickens at home; they could burn down the neighborhood with their BBQ grill or infect themselves and other with salmonella. But there are no federal taxes on chicken.

 

[drinkmorejava]

It may be illegal, but unless you blow up your house or are selling it, I highly doubt you couldn't get a judge to repeal/expunge the fine.

 

[uberman]

Originally posted by: archiloco
you'll go blind or something....

Wasn't that the self-pleasuring thread?

 

[beemercer]

Originally posted by: MrBond
Homebrewing is fine as long as you stay below a certain quantity and only go as high in alcohol content as yeast will allow you. Distilled spirits the government frowns upon because they don't get the tax money from them. Even if it's for personal consumption, they're still missing out on tax revenue, because you're not buying the vodka/rum/whatever (and paying the taxes) - you're making your own.

QFT, just dont distill/ sell, the IRS (ATF?) will come knocking.

 

[Phoenix86]

I caught a part of a documentary about micro-distilleries. Basically people trying to copy the micro-brew places that have popped up over the last several years, except with hard liquor. The owner said "basically the only thing the gov't. cared about was taxes".