Last March investigators with the
U.S. Treasury Department’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau
(TTB) joined agents from the Florida Division
of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco in a
“moonshine operation” that yielded eight arrests and 46 home
stills. The TTB explained
that “the possession of unregistered stills and the
production of distilled spirits without a Federal permit and
without payment of tax are Federal felony offenses which may
result in the seizure and forfeiture of land and other
property associated with the illegal activity.” The TTB
helpfully added that “persons wishing to distill
spirits legally are encouraged to visit the TTB distilled
spirits homepage at
http://ift.tt/MX46WT for guidance and to apply
for a permit.” Amateur distillers are apt
to be disappointed by the information on that page, which
includes the following:
You may not produce spirits for beverage purposes without
paying taxes and without prior approval of paperwork to operate a
distilled spirits plant. [See 26 U.S.C. 5601 &5602 for some of
the criminal penalties.] There are numerous requirements that must
be met that also make it impractical to produce spirits for
personal or beverage use. Some of these requirements are filing an
extensive application,
filing a bond, providing
adequate equipment to
measure spirits, providing suitable tanks and pipelines,
providing a separate
building (other than a dwelling) and maintaining
detailed records, and
filing reports. All of
these requirements are listed in 27 CFR Part
19.
In other words, if you want to try your hand at
distilling without risking arrest and
forfeiture, forget it. Unlike home winemaking and brewing, which
have been legal since 1978, home distilling is a federal felony
punishable by
up to five years in prison (plus five more for tax fraud).
But until recently, according to Rick Morris, founder of the
Hobby
Distiller’s Association, the feds did not much care if you
turned your homemade wine into brandy or your homemade beer (minus
the hops) into whiskey, as long as you didn’t make any money in the
process. Morris, who owns Brewhaus America, a leading supplier
of home distilling equipment that has been serving amateur spirit
makers since 1999, says
the raids in Florida, which mainly targeted “simple hobbyists,”
reflect a shift in policy:
In May of 2013, the TTB demanded
sales records from major distillation equipment
distributors reaching back to 2010, and required the
ongoing forfeit of this information for every
distiller or major distiller component sold, including the name
and address of the purchaser! It now appears that
this information is being utilized by the TTB as a
target list. Purchasing as little as a simple
boiling kettle from one of these companies may well earn you a
visit from armed TTB agents.
Morris argues that the ban on home distilling, which merely
concentrates the alcohol that people already are allowed to produce
through fermentation, is arbitrary and should be repealed by
Congress. In the meantime, he wonders why the TTB seems suddenly
intent on enforcing that ban:
In their most recent not-so-veiled threat, the TTB sent
letters to a large group of distiller owners—again,
mostly hobbyists—outlining the law and the associated penalties,
and including a copy of their press release about
their enforcement action in Florida.What kind of resources are they devoting to this effort,
and what benefit do they expect in
return? Hobbyists are normal, law abiding
Americans—they aren’t criminal organizations, they
represent absolutely no threat to public health
or safety, are not cheating the government of excise tax
revenues from illicit sales,
etc.What public policy objective are they hoping to advance? I can’t
think of a good one.
Me neither, but I am not a federal alcohol regulator. As I
reported
back in 1994, people with that job tend to take stupid rules very
seriously.
Reason TV covered the ban on home distilling in 2010:
from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/1jNyfYG
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