>“Our country’s founders would be rolling over in their graves to learn that a pastime in which even George Washington partook, which is as American as apple pie and certainly a lot older, has quite absurdly been turned into a federal crime,” Alt said.
I'm convinced. And it's making me think anyone that disagrees hates apple pie and America.
I get it, but apple pie isn't distilled either. Was just tying into something more thematically aligned. The law has nothing to do with danger, either, it seems to have been driven entirely by desire to protect federal tax revenue.
TIL: Apparently the nickname for distilled apple cider is applejack. Never realized the origin of the cereal's name.
given how explosive ethanol is, i have no problem with the law persisting for public safety reasons even if they weren't originally penned for that reason
i really don't want to die because the downstairs neighbor wants to make his own craft vodka
Historically non-edible apples (grown from seed, as well as dedicated cider apples) are widely available and only useful for cider, so it would be a waste of an edible apple to make cider out of it.
This would do to spirits what homebrewing has done to beer in this country. So many varieties were rediscovered and popularized when homebrewing and microbrewing were legalized during the Carter Administration.
Liquor has become consolidated among a half dozen global conglomerates. Varieties have been streamlined. Folks who are into making historical cocktails tend to hit roadblocks or make modern "almost" substitutions.
I'm in favor of this ban being struck down, even though I can't really take advantage of it. I brewed beer and wine when I was younger, but for health reasons, I can't drink alcohol anymore.
Striking this down won't mean you can resell your homemade liquor. It might lead to some experimentation and we may get more micro-distilleries as an indirect effect, but it won't change the local and state regulations around producing and selling liquor for public consumption.
No. It is not likely that it will be possible to sell homemade liquor. But, it's this experimentation that will lead to more businesses.
Many microbreweries and small breweries started when home brewers went pro. They had recipes that were popular. They decided to go through the fundraising and investment in order to build appropriate facilities and get licensed.
It's this permission to experiment and play that has inspired many of the popular ales available today.
Methanol is a natural fermentation byproduct of pectin breakdown of fruits like plums, cherries, apricots as well as grapes.
Methanol boils at approximately 64.7°C (148.5°F), while ethanol boils at 78.4°C (173.1°F). Professional distillers carefully measure and discard the initial fraction (the heads/foreshots) of a distillation run to remove the methanol. Easy for a novice to miss this key safety step.
I found this Hill opinion piece more informing. Arguing against the ban.
> When federal appellate courts reach opposing conclusions, known as a circuit split, the odds exponentially increase for the Supreme Court to grant review and clear up the confusion. Likewise, when a federal statute is struck down in whole or in part, the Supreme Court is even more likely to hear the case. In these two cases, we have a perfect storm where both of those scenarios have occurred.
> If the taxing power supplemented by the Necessary and Proper Clause were the only issue in contention, we would already have quite a sexy Supreme Court case. To dress it up even further, plaintiff John Ream astutely argued in his Sixth Circuit filings that the federal ban on at-home alcohol distillation for personal consumption also exceeds Congress’s Article I power to regulate interstate commerce because the activity in dispute is neither commerce nor interstate.
> The Supreme Court’s misguided 1942 decision in Wickard v. Filburn found that Congress could regulate wheat even if it is consumed on its originating farm. In the time since, far too much mischief has been committed in the name of regulating interstate commerce that is neither interstate nor even commerce.
Shouldn't it be the Congress that creates or voids the laws and not a court? If a law was standing for 150 years them whatever the law I feel it should be changed by the electable lawmakers, not by "council of elders".
Congress creates laws, the President signs them into law, and the Supreme Court has the power of judicial review. The catch is the court has limited capacity to review laws, cases have to go through lower courts first usually, and it has discretion of which cases it hears. The 1868 law might not have ever been challenged in 150 years, or the current judges may think that this particular case has a compelling argument to warrant another review (it happens). The Constitution does not specify that a law is beyond challenge after any period of time, so there is an infinite amount of time to do so. That's a good thing.
The question before the court isn’t whether the law is good. It’s whether the government can ban individuals from an activity for the purpose of making it easier to successfully collect tax on the commercialization of that activity.
The government is only allowed to do what is “necessary and proper” to make enforcement effective. There are reasonable arguments on both sides as to whether prohibiting home distillation is as necessary as it was in the late 19th century.
For those who missed the point: this post is related to the Deepseek ban. You can't have open source AI models, because the "distilleries" don't like it.
I'm convinced. And it's making me think anyone that disagrees hates apple pie and America.
use yeast to convert sugars from apples into alcohol: fermentation
boil that until it becomes a concentrated liquor: distillation
distillation is significantly more dangerous than fermenting
TIL: Apparently the nickname for distilled apple cider is applejack. Never realized the origin of the cereal's name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applejack_(drink)
i really don't want to die because the downstairs neighbor wants to make his own craft vodka
Liquor has become consolidated among a half dozen global conglomerates. Varieties have been streamlined. Folks who are into making historical cocktails tend to hit roadblocks or make modern "almost" substitutions.
I'm in favor of this ban being struck down, even though I can't really take advantage of it. I brewed beer and wine when I was younger, but for health reasons, I can't drink alcohol anymore.
Many microbreweries and small breweries started when home brewers went pro. They had recipes that were popular. They decided to go through the fundraising and investment in order to build appropriate facilities and get licensed.
It's this permission to experiment and play that has inspired many of the popular ales available today.
https://news.sky.com/story/three-men-charged-over-explosion-...
ethanol is incredibly explosive
Methanol is a natural fermentation byproduct of pectin breakdown of fruits like plums, cherries, apricots as well as grapes.
Methanol boils at approximately 64.7°C (148.5°F), while ethanol boils at 78.4°C (173.1°F). Professional distillers carefully measure and discard the initial fraction (the heads/foreshots) of a distillation run to remove the methanol. Easy for a novice to miss this key safety step.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-46865455
> When federal appellate courts reach opposing conclusions, known as a circuit split, the odds exponentially increase for the Supreme Court to grant review and clear up the confusion. Likewise, when a federal statute is struck down in whole or in part, the Supreme Court is even more likely to hear the case. In these two cases, we have a perfect storm where both of those scenarios have occurred.
> If the taxing power supplemented by the Necessary and Proper Clause were the only issue in contention, we would already have quite a sexy Supreme Court case. To dress it up even further, plaintiff John Ream astutely argued in his Sixth Circuit filings that the federal ban on at-home alcohol distillation for personal consumption also exceeds Congress’s Article I power to regulate interstate commerce because the activity in dispute is neither commerce nor interstate.
> The Supreme Court’s misguided 1942 decision in Wickard v. Filburn found that Congress could regulate wheat even if it is consumed on its originating farm. In the time since, far too much mischief has been committed in the name of regulating interstate commerce that is neither interstate nor even commerce.
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/5857091-home-distillin...
The government is only allowed to do what is “necessary and proper” to make enforcement effective. There are reasonable arguments on both sides as to whether prohibiting home distillation is as necessary as it was in the late 19th century.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/21/health/alcohol-use-decline-st...