I was thinking the same thing - wasn’t there a whiskey rebellion for taxes.... as I recall (not that I’m quite that old) the whiskey was the farmer’s way of increasing profits due to the long, difficult logistics for grain and excess product availability. So they made the whiskey to sell something more in demand and reduce the logistical burden, plus it kept better. Then someone said... hey they’re making a lot of money, we need to get’s us some of dat.....or something like that.
Then along came the revenuers (sp) and ruined that idea.