People could just get intoxicated with caulk:

aggiehawg said:

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Squadron7 said:

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aggiehawg said:

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Squadron7 said:

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aggiehawg said:

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Bootlegging can still be outlawed as that is not for personal consumption. Plus there is a legitimate governmental concern for health and safety to the public.

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How would this differ from home brewing or even home cooking in regards to food safety?

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If sold to anyone outside of family, safety and health codes apply. Say I want to start making pies in my kitchen to sell at our local grocery stores. My kitchen would be subject to inspection same as a restaurant's kitchen would be. Some cottage industries are more subject to regulation than others but drink or foodstuffs will be regulated.

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I get that. I was concentrating on the idea being true personal use.

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True personal use is fine. Not regulated at all. Most people have contracted food poisoning at one time or another, such as potato salad or deviled eggs that go bad after sitting in the sun on the 4th of July.

My Mom was a great baker and cake decorator. She would make multi-tiered wedding cakes for family members just for the cost of the ingredients.

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Distilling for personal use is illegal. At least before this case it was.

AlaskanAg99 said:

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Squadron7 said:

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aggiehawg said:

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Bootlegging can still be outlawed as that is not for personal consumption. Plus there is a legitimate governmental concern for health and safety to the public.

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How would this differ from home brewing or even home cooking in regards to food safety?

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The issue is with toxic chemicals "wood alcohols" in the final run that can have serious bad effects. Homebrewing cant produce those concentrations unless you had a really crappy ferment and then freeze distilled.

Only real diehards will probably distill, its a Lot of work for little return unless youre working with larger equipment. Aging anything in barrels (espnthe smaller ones),you lose so much to angels share the roi really gets bad.

There is a lot more info available now vs 2 clowns in the hills with poor practices making something harmful.

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I'm going to disagree, making beer is WAY more work than making whiskey.

ntxVol said:

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AlaskanAg99 said:

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Squadron7 said:

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aggiehawg said:

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Bootlegging can still be outlawed as that is not for personal consumption. Plus there is a legitimate governmental concern for health and safety to the public.

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How would this differ from home brewing or even home cooking in regards to food safety?

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The issue is with toxic chemicals "wood alcohols" in the final run that can have serious bad effects. Homebrewing cant produce those concentrations unless you had a really crappy ferment and then freeze distilled.

Only real diehards will probably distill, its a Lot of work for little return unless youre working with larger equipment. Aging anything in barrels (espnthe smaller ones),you lose so much to angels share the roi really gets bad.

There is a lot more info available now vs 2 clowns in the hills with poor practices making something harmful.

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I'm going to disagree, making beer is WAY more work than making whiskey.

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I've been brewing for 22 years. Maybe its just 2nd nature at this point. I will agree you have to know more of how to make good beer. Great beer is another level of equipment and knowledge.

ToddyHill said:

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Wow, that's crazy.

I spent the last seven years of my work career in the distilled spirits industry up in Gatlinburg. Couple of my co-workers made their own 'stuff' on the side for personal use. Candidly, I stayed away from it because I just wasn't certain if it was straight ethanol.

Outside of New Zealand, I'm not aware of any developed country that allows home distillation. It will be interesting to see how this proceeds.

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I enjoyed watching moonshiners but always thought to myself
1) would I drink something that could poison me / make me go blind from a stranger AND pay more for it then high quality whiskey from the Liquor Store that I knew was safe

2) some of those guys were doing a lot of strenuous labor to do something that could get them thrown in jail and was not guaranteed to produce a sellable product or a profit

you won't get a lot of the compounds will convert into methanol from corn, rye, barley, or wheat, at least as far as I understand it. the risk is higher with fruit. part of the reason why apple jack (freeze distilled cider) is known for giving such bad hangovers.

Seems like we've known this about taxes for a long time.

Quote:

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The power to tax is the power to destroy.

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-John Marshall, McCulloch v. Maryland

B-1 83 said:

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No more "Revenuers"!

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They still out there. Mostly siting on side of expressways in unmarked cars preying only on drivers exceeding speed limit.

ToddyHill said:

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Outside of New Zealand, I'm not aware of any developed country that allows home distillation.

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I know from personal experience: Serbia and most of the non-EU former Yugoslav states. Late summer is home Rakia-making season. Only for personal use, of course. Not for commercial sale.

Mexicans also killed tourists in Cancun and other places with cheap methanol knock off liquor. Gotta watchole watchole, the 'all inclusivo' does not include death.

I seem to remember a tax on firearms.

flown-the-coop said:

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Over_ed said:

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Who needs meth labs to explode when you have stills next door (or in your basement)? :-)

Ethanol is explosively combustible at a very low concentration. And one stray spark (like from a thermostat) or plug could rock your world more than MD 20/20.

Still would be legally prohibited by almost every local governmental agency. And would likely render your insurance worthless if associated with a loss.

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This line of thinking is why gas cans to fill your lawn mower have you rethinking life and buying an EV mower and a soy latte.

Again, lots of very flammable things in your house. But a still is out of the question.

Probably should go back to banning gas stoves and grills. Simply too much risk.

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Just take the fill tube off and use a funnel.

doubledog said:

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ToddyHill said:

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Just my two cents. In my career, I've worked with USDA, FDA, and finally, the TTB. The first two are all about food safety. The TTB is all about revenue. They don't give a rats arse about Food Safety, because anything over 14% alcohol (28 proof) is not an environment that will support the growth of pathogenic bacteria.

If you want to ferment to make wine or beer you are good to go. But home distillation for personal use is not allowed.

Kinda crazy, but my sister has my grandmother's 2 1/2 gallon copper pot still. Didn't know grandma was a moonshiner, but she was in the 1930's on their farm in Connecticut.

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The distillation process can potentially produce methanol rather than ethanol. Ethanol gets you drunk, methanol can blind you.

Old moonshiner trick, burn a tablespoon of ethanol and it will produce a yellow flame (depending on water concentration). Methanol will burn a light blue.

https://www.reddit.com/r/chemicalreactiongifs/comments/5cw7zj/burning_pure_methanol_left_and_pure_ethanol_right/

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Using this advice is a good way to poison yourself.

jtkk said:

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aggiehawg said:

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Bootlegging can still be outlawed as that is not for personal consumption. Plus there is a legitimate governmental concern for health and safety to the public.

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Yep. My wife and I recently listened to a Criminal podcast (excellent podcast series by the way with Phoebe Judge) about this that happened during Prohibition. A lot of people died and had serious injuries due to it.
For anyone interested, it's the episode titled "The Formula".
It was pretty amazing what lengths people went to in order to get liquor during that time.

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Is that the one that talks about when the government mandated that drug stores change rubbing alcohol to denatured alcohol right before Christmas and didn't inform the moonshiners?

TexasRebel said:

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flown-the-coop said:

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Over_ed said:

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Who needs meth labs to explode when you have stills next door (or in your basement)? :-)

Ethanol is explosively combustible at a very low concentration. And one stray spark (like from a thermostat) or plug could rock your world more than MD 20/20.

Still would be legally prohibited by almost every local governmental agency. And would likely render your insurance worthless if associated with a loss.

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This line of thinking is why gas cans to fill your lawn mower have you rethinking life and buying an EV mower and a soy latte.

Again, lots of very flammable things in your house. But a still is out of the question.

Probably should go back to banning gas stoves and grills. Simply too much risk.

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Just take the fill tube off and use a funnel.

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I hired a bunch of H1-Bs to mow and then several more to design a new gas can. Finding solutions to problems is what o do.

Quote:

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Ethanol is explosively combustible at a very low concentration. And one stray spark (like from a thermostat) or plug could rock your world more than MD 20/20.

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You are spot on. When I went to work in the spirits industry, I jokingly told my boss this was nothing more than a food grade refinery. He wasn't amused.

All that said, it was crazy how much of the electrical, ventilation, and other assorted build outs had to be 'explosion-proof.' But then again, we were also handling 192 proof ethanol.

If you think that's bad, try a grain elevator.

The impact this will have on the cases against the ATF and NFA will be interesting.

TexasRebel said:

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If you think that's bad, try a grain elevator.

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If you think that's bad, you should see the urinis.

bmc13 said:

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you won't get a lot of the compounds will convert into methanol from corn, rye, barley, or wheat, at least as far as I understand it. the risk is higher with fruit. part of the reason why apple jack (freeze distilled cider) is known for giving such bad hangovers.

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This is wild and unscientific. Apple jack likely gives hangovers because it is freeze distilled, which means it still has a lot of methyl and other basal alcohols in it.

Different alcohols have different boiling points. When you boil a mixture, the liquid with the lowest boiling point boils off before the temperature rises to the next boiling point of the liquid in the mixture, where it stays until that liquid is boiled off. Freeze distilling doesn't do that

TexasRebel said:

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doubledog said:

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ToddyHill said:

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Just my two cents. In my career, I've worked with USDA, FDA, and finally, the TTB. The first two are all about food safety. The TTB is all about revenue. They don't give a rats arse about Food Safety, because anything over 14% alcohol (28 proof) is not an environment that will support the growth of pathogenic bacteria.

If you want to ferment to make wine or beer you are good to go. But home distillation for personal use is not allowed.

Kinda crazy, but my sister has my grandmother's 2 1/2 gallon copper pot still. Didn't know grandma was a moonshiner, but she was in the 1930's on their farm in Connecticut.

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The distillation process can potentially produce methanol rather than ethanol. Ethanol gets you drunk, methanol can blind you.

Old moonshiner trick, burn a tablespoon of ethanol and it will produce a yellow flame (depending on water concentration). Methanol will burn a light blue.

https://www.reddit.com/r/chemicalreactiongifs/comments/5cw7zj/burning_pure_methanol_left_and_pure_ethanol_right/

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Using this advice is a good way to poison yourself.

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Throw away the first 3rd, keep the middle 3rd, throw away the last 3rd. Then move to fractional stills.

aggiehawg said:

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The ranch has been in my family for 115 years. Baptists so a still was out of the question but wild muscadine grapes grew on the property. They made "grape juice" that was wine just never called it that. Wink/wink. Just like the old adage, never go fishing with only one Baptist because he'll drink all of your beer.

True story time. The Hubs and I would attend his summer family reunions at Kentucky Dam Village for several years running. We always flew into Nashville and drove into Kentucky stopping to get a styrofoam cooler, ice and a case of beer (don't judge, for both of us for a week) because where Kentucky Dam Village was located was dry.

Kept the cooler in the back of our rented SUV. So after dinner (and I had helped clean up the kitchen) we'd go outside to have a beer. It was dark. Not a lot of streetlights. But one by one, here all of the "good Baptists" would come out to drink our beer. We'd have to go to Paducah to buy more at least once, if not twice, per trip.

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Jews don't recognize Jesus as the son of God, Protestants don't recognize the Pope as the voice of God and Baptists don't recognize each another in the liquor store

On the dairy we had a 60 foot Harvestore silo system that we put corn, maize or sorghum in to supplement feeding the cows. There was a drain at the bottom and after a period of the fermentation process of the contents, a very clear liquid would drip out of the drain. We never tested it but I would imagine it was on par with Everclear when it came to proof.

I can't believe we're 40+ responses into this thread and nobody has expressed surprise that the ATF is involved in something not involving firearms restrictions.

Shirt courtesy of Colion Noir.

sam callahan said:

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All taxes influence/control behavior.

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Ehh, to a certain degree I suppose.

Taxes to pay for roads don't really influence or control behavior, outside of "forcing" you to drive on the road. But punitive taxes that are designed to either prevent you from entering an industry or punish you for not buying a product or service (healthcare, anybody????) are different and do influence and control behavior without a doubt.

Quote:

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Taxes to pay for roads don't really influence or control behavior, outside of "forcing" you to drive on the road. But punitive taxes that are designed to either prevent you from entering an industry or punish you for not buying a product or service (healthcare, anybody????) are different and do influence and control behavior without a doubt.

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Agree. It is one thing to incentivize a behavior using taxes but it is not compelling that behavior. But when the taxes are punitive to compel or prohibit certain behavior is not a legit use of the power to tax. Or so says the 5th Circuit.

BusterAg said:

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bmc13 said:

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you won't get a lot of the compounds will convert into methanol from corn, rye, barley, or wheat, at least as far as I understand it. the risk is higher with fruit. part of the reason why apple jack (freeze distilled cider) is known for giving such bad hangovers.

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This is wild and unscientific. Apple jack likely gives hangovers because it is freeze distilled, which means it still has a lot of methyl and other basal alcohols in it.

Different alcohols have different boiling points. When you boil a mixture, the liquid with the lowest boiling point boils off before the temperature rises to the next boiling point of the liquid in the mixture, where it stays until that liquid is boiled off. Freeze distilling doesn't do that

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high pectin levels in fruits such as apples lead to higher levels of methanol production in fermentation. hence the "part of the reason".

Rattler12 said:

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On the dairy we had a 60 foot Harvestore silo system that we put corn, maize or sorghum in to supplement feeding the cows. There was a drain at the bottom and after a period of the fermentation process of the contents, a very clear liquid would drip out of the drain. We never tested it but I would imagine it was on par with Everclear when it came to proof.

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The most ethanol resistant yeasts die out around 40 proof. Unless the elevator was condensing evaporated alcohol, impossible to get above 20% abv.