Miller is one of my favorite beer companies. I wish TN would allow wine sales in grocery stores. I love drinkin' dark red zinfandel with steaks and a-1 cracked peppercorn steak sauce.

Well it was illegal to brew beer and wine until 1978. All the predictions that it would lead to a loss of revenue, bad spirits, rampant drunkenness, or untaxed beer sales proved to be unfounded. Nearly everyone who brews is a connoisseur who creates high end beer and wine for their own personal satisfaction. Some have leveraged their hobbies into high end microbreweries and vineyards that bring in economic value to society. If you want the cheap lousy stuff you still have to get it from a big corporate outfit that produces crap like Gallo or Anheiser Busch.

We've tried to legalize liquor distillation in the states through bills introduced from time to time, but the prohibitionists strike it down with the same old tired arguments. Home distillation is legal in most parts of the world though. Most recently it was legalized in New Zealand and none of the negative predictions made about what would happen turned out to be true.

If liquor distillation was legalized in the states, taxable liquor sales would stay exactly where they are now, or go up as new boutique manufacturers are added. There's no chance of getting bad hootch since adding methanol, or using lead soldered radiators are all practices from the 1919-1933 that came as a result of illegality. It's better to do this in the open, and if someone's hobby turns serious and they get a license to sell it, the original of the liquor will be well known, and the manufacturer accountable.

In my opinion it would be wonderful to see locals brewing apple brandy and other such delicacies and it could replace a lot of the tobacco and manufacturing income that has been lost to this area.

JJ seems pretty solid on owning a still without manufacturing.

Ever wander why we plebeians can brew our own beer and wine, but not liquor? The primary reason is tax money.

Beer is taxed at $0.14/gallon.
Wine is taxed at $1.21/gallon.
Liquor is taxed at $4.40/gallon.

Our beloved state gov't won't give up that sort of tax revenue to let Joe Public distill his own. Too much money to lose with that sin tax.

Possession of untaxed spirits is illegal, as is manufacturing spirits without a federal license.

However, distillation apparatus is a fundamental, important and ancient chemistry technique that is of vast importance to humanity. Every elementary school should teach children how distillation works and perform it as part of science class.

Plenty of people build their own home made distillation apparatus for the extraction of essential medicinal oils from herbs, and also perfumes such as lavender oil. It's also useful for distilling dirty water, or water with microbes such as many homes in this area get from spring and stream water. These are all legal uses.

Really no home should be without a distillation apparatus because it is so tremendously useful.

Now if you have a bucket of sour mash in the garage and a distillation apparatus in the shed, you can get into trouble.

But mere possession of the equipment, or lawful use thereof, is not a crime.

JJ, please elaborate. I've read your posts and you seem to know the laws. I know you can purchase a still on-line, but would this not fall under an attempt to manufacture?

Possession of a still is no crime.