Apexcarver said:I'm just surprised Home Depot would get into the kind of game with that and the legalities.
That hasn't seemed to stop smoke shops from selling "accessories" for decades.
I'm with Beer Baron - much like home brewing, just not worth the effort.
That said, I doubt the amount of taxes lost from home distillers is worth the expense it would need for the ATF and IRS to go after them individually.
jharry3 said:Back when I was a teenager in the 70's I used to go hunting with some seriously redneck rural guys. Moonshine was sold in mason jars - totally against federal law but 1/2 of the price of store bought because of the taxes added by state and feds. And it was really quality stuff. I would bet this is still a thing in the rural parts of Southern States.
That's a different animal than the typical home distiller. That's black market distilling at a large enough scale to be a viable side business. They are not using a 1 gallon still.
Being involved in the spirits industry, I'd question how many people are actually going from home distilling to craft distilling, and what kind of quality they're producing. Pretty much all the spirits companies you see pop up rapidly are buying distillate from a mega-distillery and then aging, blending, packaging, and marketing it themselves.
In reply to Beer Baron :
Probably 50% of the ones we met in SE MI were more home then craft vs. going to the local university to get info. And since the law here favors beer and wine makers- many of them are experimenting with their base product before making alcohol. (the law favors wine and beer makers in the fact they can get a pretty cheap state distilling license- which I offered to pay for a beer maker we met)
Maybe you would not call a wine or beer maker experimenting with distilling their product as "home distiller"- but they are certainly doing that on a home scale- single digit gallons as opposed to full barrel's worth.
I tried home brewing for a couple years.
It taught me to go do what I'm good at, make money and give it to someone who's really good at brewing beer. They will then give me wonderful beer instead of whatever I was making.
In reply to Beer Baron :
I'd say that the biggest thing someone could learn from home distilling is how to judge a commercial product. I was talking to a customer yesterday who was trying to learn whiskeys. I looked at what they had in their bar and suggested several others to try. My point on the ones that I recommended was how good the cuts were made on them. Once you get a chance to taste a good pot still cut you understand the heads and tails and hearts and what each adds to the end product. Yes a Tom Sims "taste" better than a Jack Daniels but a Koval shows what can be done when the cuts are right.
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