Published: 13 April 2014 11:20 PM
Updated: 14 April 2014 10:58 AM
The movement to legalize marijuana dominates headlines these days, but another group is laboring in relative obscurity to legalize its chosen intoxicant: homemade liquor.
The newly formed Hobby Distillers Association, based in Tarrant County, aims to change a federal law that prevents anyone from distilling spirits in the home — even if you drink it all yourself and don’t sell a drop.
“A lot of people don’t realize this is illegal,” said Rick Morris, owner of Brewhaus, a Keller company that manufactures and distributes small-scale stills and related supplies to make liquor. “It’s an eye-opener for them.”
Morris, the driving force behind the new association, has scraped up the funds to hire a Washington, D.C., lobbying firm to convince Congress that hobby distilling should be put on the same legal basis as brewing beer and making wine at home.
“The beer and wine hobbyists are a little more organized,” said Paul Kanitra, president of lobbyit.com, which now represents the Hobby Distillers Association. “The hobby distillers are finally saying enough is enough.”
Federal law allows a hobbyist to brew up to 100 gallons of beer a year without getting a license or paying taxes. The same holds true for wine makers.
But distilling any amount of spirits — whiskey, gin, vodka, absinthe — could bring legal problems with the IRS and its subsidiary agency, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.
Federal regulators say it’s a matter of public health and safety: It’s easy, they say, to inadvertently produce homemade liquor adulterated with poisonous chemicals or start a fire with open flames used to heat a still.
Home distillers say those fears are overblown — that their hobby is safe and harms no one.
Kanitra said he and his lobby team hope to find a member of thee U.S. House or Senate to sponsor a bill and get it passed before the end of the year.
“We have to educate members of Congress, and once we do that, they will see there is no reason to treat hobby distillers so differently,” Kanitra said.
In the meantime, it appears that federal agents are making good on a threat to arrest distillers.
Agents from the tax and trade bureau and agents from the Florida Division of Alcoholic Beverages arrested eight people and seized 48 stills throughout Florida last month. It’s unclear how many of those arrested were moonshiners, selling their liquor. Hobby distillers distinguish themselves from moonshiners because they make small batches only for themselves, family and friends.
Morris, the Brewhaus owner in Keller, said the Florida arrests prompted him and others to get serious about organizing the movement toward legalization.
Last year, the tax and trade bureau required Morris and other businesses that sell distillation equipment to hand over lists of their customers. At least one of those arrested in Florida had purchased his still at Brewhaus and had never taken it out of the box, according to Morris.
“I’m convinced they used the list they got from me to do that,” he said. “And that’s when we decided to form a stronger, unified organization to pursue this.”
Tom Hogue, a spokesman for the tax and trade bureau, declined to comment on the Florida arrests. The agency takes no position on pending legislation that affects its mission, he said.
“We enforce the law that is on the books,” Hogue said.
How many hobbyists are distilling spirits at home is anybody’s guess. You can’t count what you can’t see in garages, kitchens and outdoor sheds.
The tax and trade bureau’s 2013 annual report says the number of federal permits issued to craft distillers increased from 210 in 2008 to 471 in 2012, an increase of almost 125 percent. Craft distillers — think Austin-based Tito’s Vodka — are licensed to produce up to 100,000 gallons a year. Many of them started as hobbyists and eventually decided to get the necessary federal permits to distill legally.
“With that kind of growth in the legitimate industry, that tells me there is similar growth in the illegal segment,” Hogue said.
Philip Shaner, an information technology specialist who lives in Rockwall County, maintains a still in a special building near his home. He recently obtained a federal alternative fuels permit that allows him to distill ethanol, the active ingredient in liquor. The permit allows him to mix the alcohol with gasoline to power farm machinery, lawnmowers and the like.
Shaner, 56, said he decided to get his permit to protect himself against “the weaponization of the government,” which means he didn’t want to get arrested for breaking the law.
Experimenting with the still and refining his distillation process, Shaner hopes, eventually might lead to a second career act as a craft distiller.
“At my age, I’ll never get another job like the one I have,” he said. “What will I do next? I’m gonna try to be a distiller of spirits.”
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