Posted on 07/13/2024 10:37:31 AM PDT by thegagline
A federal judge in Texas has ruled that an 1868 ban on at-home distilling is unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, in his ruling on Wednesday, sided with the Hobby Distillers Association’s lawyers that the 156-year-old ban exceeded Congress’s taxing power and violated the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause. The Hobby Distillers Association is a group that advocates legalizing a person’s production of spirits such as whiskey and bourbon for their personal consumption.
“Indeed, the Constitution is written to prevent societal amnesia of the defined limits it places on this government of and by the people,” Pittman wrote. “That is where the judiciary must declare when its coequal branches overstep their Constitutional authority. Congress has done so here.”
Pittman issued a permanent injunction prohibiting the U.S. government from enforcing the ban against the Hobby Distillers Association’s members. The judge also stayed his decision for 14 days to allow the government to seek a stay at the appellate court level.
People who violate the at-home distilling ban could face up to $10,000 in fines or five years in prison.
***
The hobby group, which represented the plaintiffs, and four of its 1,300 members filed a lawsuit in December against the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau and the Department of Justice, saying that the government’s regulatory reach could not extend to activities within a person’s home.
“Indeed, the Constitution is written to prevent societal amnesia of the defined limits it places on this government of and by the people,” Pittman wrote. “That is where the judiciary must declare when its coequal branches overstep their Constitutional authority. Congress has done so here.”
Pittman issued a permanent injunction prohibiting the U.S. government from enforcing the ban against the Hobby Distillers Association’s members.
(Excerpt) Read more at dnyuz.com ...
The case was brought by the libertarian think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute
🎶Well, my name's John Lee Pettimore
Same as my daddy and his daddy before
You hardly ever saw grandaddy down here
He only came to town about twice a year
He'd buy a hundred pounds of yeast and some copper line
Everybody knew that he made moonshine
Now the revenue man wanted grandaddy bad
Headed up the holler with everything he had
Before my time, but I've been told
He never come back from Copperhead Road
Steve Earle, Copperhead Road
I once thought of distilling my own liquor — it’s really quite simple — but then I remembered how cheap liquor was at the supermarket.
Why was this ever an issue? You can make home made booze all day long. Was this about resale?
It is simple, but one mistake can be lethal. I worked in Columbus, Georgia to four years, and it turned out the cliche of southerners all making moonshine has some truth to it. The Linux guy in my group was from Alabama, and he was describing how he used stainless steel pipes instead of copper, used Tums to get the pH right, and regulated temperature with an aquarium water heater with thermostat. He was very proud of his product, but warned me not to mention his college pastime to make money to his kids.
Still, (pun intended) it would be fun to make your own whiskey... I’ll have to run up to Lynchburg Tennessee (30 miles) and get some of their spring water.
It takes a long time, I am told. You have to baby sit it for 24 hours.
To get $30 worth at the store.
Left over from Prohibition and dry countiea?
It’s one of those federal laws that some states basically ignore. People make shine here and sell it to friends. Everyone knows it. Peach moonshine seems to be a favorite.
At college, I used to make hard cider which tasted slightly better than Thunderbird or Night Train.
One of my lifelong friends comes from an interesting family. One of his grandfathers was expert at making ‘whiskey’.
The other grandfather was a revenuer for the state.
They got along famously.
An originalist interpretation of the Commerce Clause is LONG overdue. In that day, to "regulate commerce" meant to make it usual and therefore uninhibited.
Thank you. Steve Earle is a commie but he does write some very good songs.
One doesn’t exist without the other.
Thanks for the lyric.
A probable folk song Copper Kettle was only traced to the 1940s but had to have been older.
On Bob Dylan’s disregarded album Self-Portrait.
(”The line “We ain’t paid no whiskey tax since 1792” alludes to an unpopular tax imposed in 1791 by the fledgling U.S. federal government. The levy provoked the Whiskey Rebellion and generally had a short life, barely lasting until 1803.”
Wikipedia.
Get you a copper kettle
Get you a copper coil
Fill it with new made corn mash
And never more you’ll toil
We’ll just lay there by the juniper
While the moon is bright
Watch them jugs a-filling
In the pale moonlight
Build you a fire with hickory
Hickory, ash and oak
Don’t use no green or rotten wood
They’ll get you by the smoke
We’ll just lay there by the juniper
While the moon is bright
Watch them jugs a-filling
In the pale moonlight
My daddy he made whiskey
My granddaddy he did too
We ain’t paid no whiskey tax
Since 1792
We’ll just lay there by the juniper
While the moon is bright
Watch them jugs a-filling
In the pale moonlight
In the pale moonlight
Good song and video.
It’s been done that way since forever. Societies thrive on symbiosis.
In high school my buddy and i made wine, but his old man caught us. He setup a makeshift still and turned some into foul-tasting brandy. We decided it was easier to just bribe another kids older brother to buy us a six-pack.
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