US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional
by t-3 on 4/13/2026, 1:37:33 PM
Comments
by: bsimpson
Do this one next:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich</a><p>The Supreme Court somehow held that the feds can regulate what you do in your own home (in this case, growing marijuana for personal use) because it could have a butterfly effect on the interstate price. (Constitutionally, the feds can only regulate _interstate_ commerce.)
4/13/2026, 3:18:15 PM
by: ryandamm
Missed in the previous discussion: methanol is irrelevant. Grain based ferments have essentially zero methanol.(And methanol risk is a function of its concentration relative to ethanol — the treatment for methanol poisoning is… ethanol!) even fruit based fermentations with significantly higher pectin concentrations only produce trace methanol, and it’s not all that well concentrated in a distillation due to azeotropes (which also says that throwing out the heads doesn’t help that much).<p>Methanol poisoning stories in the news almost exclusively result from people trying to sell denatured or industrial alcohol. The biggest risk in home distilling is fire.
4/13/2026, 2:41:25 PM
by: semiquaver
<p><pre><code> > [Judge Edith Jones] also said that under the government’s logic, Congress could criminalize virtually any in-home activity </code></pre> Well, yeah. This is essentially the holding in Wickard v. Filburn, which seems to be in tension with this decision (overturning that would be great but it’s not the role of the circuit courts of appeal to do preemptively)
4/13/2026, 3:09:00 PM
by: andrewmg
Reposting my comment from the last thread:<p>For those wondering, the opinion[0] doesn't address the Commerce Clause power (and Wickard and Raich) becaue the government abandoned that argument. See footnote 5.<p>The Commerce Clause issue is raised in our other case[1] that's now pending before the Sixth Circuit.<p>(I argued both cases.)<p>[0] <a href="https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/24/24-10760-CV0.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/24/24-10760-CV0.pd...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://www.buckeyeinstitute.org/issues/detail/ream-v-us-department-of-treasury" rel="nofollow">https://www.buckeyeinstitute.org/issues/detail/ream-v-us-dep...</a>
4/13/2026, 5:44:11 PM
by: jcims
Bought and rigged up a 'hand sanitizer plant' about five months into COVID. Populated the thing with thermocouples, load cells and automation with nodered on raspberry pi and a bunch of esp32s flashed with tasmota doing sensing and control. Everything talked over mqtt. Great little architecture and having it highly automated allowed me to focus on the parts that were less easily controlled for.<p>Dashboard: <a href="https://imgur.com/a/so7iZJX" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/a/so7iZJX</a><p>Sanitizer run: <a href="https://imgur.com/a/iWDlNfb" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/a/iWDlNfb</a><p>Quite a lot of fun actually.
4/13/2026, 3:26:35 PM
by: beedeebeedee
The best liquor I ever had was by a state police detective who had been home distilling since he was 12. It was made from rye and corn, but tasted like peaches.<p>I think it is kind of magical to witness the process. I only experimented a few times, and never aged it, so every was very sharp. The best was a sharp brandy made from a bottle of wine I bought. The worst was using a leftover keg of beer, which bittered the copper pipe, so everything after tasted like gin.<p>I would recommend people try it. You can make one out of copper pipe from a hardware store, a few fittings and a pressure cooker. Be safe, of course, and remember that ethanol is used as a preventative for methanol poisoning :)
4/13/2026, 6:29:49 PM
by: GenerWork
It's been way too long since I've taken a political science course, but does this mean that the ban is struck down for the entire country, or just the area that the 5th Court of Appeals covers?
4/13/2026, 3:20:37 PM
by: esbranson
The US refused to defend the Commerce Clause, so the circuit court did not consider it, though the Commerce Clause precedent would have likely demanded a different result.<p>This is circuit split engineering by the administration, meant to allow the Supreme Court to overrule its precedent on the Commerce Clause or whatever.
4/14/2026, 12:51:40 AM
by: joshstrange
Previous discussion: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47736298">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47736298</a>
4/13/2026, 1:58:35 PM
by: superjan
Might as well plug this recent Criminal Podcast episode: <a href="https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-358-the-formula-3-27-2026" rel="nofollow">https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-358-the-formula-3-27-2026</a><p>TLDL: During prohibition, US government required adding 5% methanol to industrial alcohol, hoping that this would stop bootleggers from selling it as liquor. It was sold anyway, resulting in many deaths.
4/13/2026, 3:44:14 PM
by: moron4hire
If you have a stock pot, a steel bowl that is large enough to sit on top of the stock pot, and a Pyrex measuring glass, you can start distilling now.<p>Put the glass in the center of the pot. Fill the pot with not enough mash to float the glass. Top the pot with the bowl. The condensate will form on the bowl and run towards the bottom center of the bowl, where it will drip into the glass.<p>I was able to distill a few bottles of home made apple wine that I had screwed up some additional flavorings on. It took a couple of hours for 3 or 4 bottles.<p>You'll have to do your own research on the finer details of making this work. I figured it out from first principles in the middle of doing it, so it's not that hard. Hell, people have been distilling for centuries, before they even knew what caused fermentation. Anything pre-Industrial Revolution peasants could do, I should be able to figure out in my modern house full of power tools. I'm not here to teach you how to do this, just inform that it's possible with equipment you likely already have.
4/14/2026, 11:02:39 AM
by: tomwheeler
As I understand it, this only applies to the three states in that district, all of which also have statewide bans against it.<p>My state (Missouri) has the most lax home distilling state laws in the nation, which allow residents to produce up to 500 bottles per year. Well, at least theoretically, since the federal ban takes precedence.
4/13/2026, 5:51:46 PM
by: Nifty3929
Great - but this will only until home distilling becomes popular in which case they will find a new reason to prohibit it. A company will produce a home-distilling gizmo with a fancy screen and app to go with it. They will raise some few $M's and have news articles written. Probably there will be a subscription consumable of some kind. Then there will be some bad press and they will make it illegal and the fancy home distiller will become useless do to a lack of software updates.
4/13/2026, 11:14:12 PM
by: NoSalt
I had no idea this was even a law!!! Where do I turn myself in?
4/13/2026, 4:53:53 PM
by: mark124mj
Homebrewing beer and wine was illegal at the federal level until 1978, and the sky didn't fall when that changed. Distilling is the same kind of personal-use activity — the main difference is that the law just never caught up. Good to see the courts pushing this forward.
4/14/2026, 5:48:57 AM
by: mothballed
The post '86 machine gun ban relies on basically the exact principle overturned here.
4/13/2026, 3:34:49 PM
by: lofaszvanitt
Do not drink, fight the calories.
4/13/2026, 8:35:20 PM
by: shevy-java
Have a beer for that news!
4/13/2026, 6:56:38 PM
by: lenerdenator
It'll be interesting to see how many people get methanol poisoning from trying their hand at it without doing the research properly. That being said, so long as it's for private or non-profit use, I don't really see the harm here.
4/13/2026, 3:37:26 PM
by: ChrisArchitect
[dupe] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47736298">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47736298</a>
4/13/2026, 3:06:00 PM
by: DesiLurker
they also need to strike down the state laws restricting collection of rainwater on you own property.
4/13/2026, 9:27:29 PM
by: caycep
how...uh...explosive...are home stills?
4/13/2026, 4:12:18 PM
by: user20180120
[flagged]
4/13/2026, 3:09:20 PM
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4/13/2026, 2:48:14 PM
by: gigatexal
Big beer head Kavanaugh and Kegseth are probably jumping for joy.
4/13/2026, 3:35:04 PM