Feel free to use any of it that might be helpful in the legalisation push.
The Intro, Preface, Tax Loss, and Summary sections are basically done. The Health and Safety section is where the bulk of work is left to do. Shouldn't be any problems there, just needs finishing. There are a few edit notes along the way, usually inside square brackets.
North Americans might need to make some spelling changes.
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Why Home Distilling Should Be Legal
Preface
This was written in response to various media reports and 'official' statements from some 'authorities' about the alleged dangers of home distillation of alcoholic spirits for drinking, and to the general level of misunderstanding and mythology in the general community about home distilling.
Due to its illegality, hobby-level home distillers rarely have a voice in this public policy debate – a debate usually driven more by ignorance, fear, moral hysteria, the treasury's insatiable desire for revenue, and the lawmaker's control-lust, than by any rational, informed considerations. So it was time we had our say about the real situation.
(NOTE: This article is only discussing small scale, non-profit, hobby level, home distillation of beverage spirits for personal consumption, not large scale or commercial operations.)
Introduction
Home distillation of drinking alcohol (ethanol) for personal consumption has a long history going back many hundreds of years, if not longer. In many parts of the world it is an ancient and honourable tradition and craft. However, it is also an illegal practice in virtually all countries, with New Zealand being a notable and enlightened exception. (Though in many countries the authorities effectively turn a blind eye to it, provided it is small scale, non-commercial, and nobody gets hurt).
[CHECK if NZ only country now. One or two east European & South American countries?]
The main justifications given for its illegal status fall into two categories: health and safety, and tax avoidance.
Health and safety are inherent reasons, they exist for home distillation independent of its formal legal status, and these concerns have some (limited) legitimacy. But the tax avoidance issue is one that is an entirely arbitrary public policy choice, it has no inherent relationship to alcohol distillation itself.
Tax Loss
The home production of beer and wine for personal consumption are legal and widely practised in many countries, and the product is not directly taxed. Yet neither the governments of those countries, nor their commercial beer and wine industries, are going broke as a result.
The production of quality beer and wine requires time, materials, knowledge, skill, and a fair chunk of commitment and patience. As with the amateur side of many pursuits, there are simply not enough people who have both the resources and interest to be able to make a serious dent in the commercial wine and beer markets.
The same is at least as true for beverage spirits, so it is difficult to see how legalising hobby distillation would cause governments to lose significant amounts of tax revenue from lower sales of spirits.
Furthermore, in many places hobby distillation of fuel alcohol for personal use is legal (with appropriate licences), yet this has not sent the commercial fuel industry into decline. Not even close. [Nor has there been a rash of serious safety incidents. CHECK]
The (limited) evidence we have on the effect of legalising home beverage distillation on the sales of commercial spirits comes from the NZ experience when home distillation was made legal in 1996. After legalisation the sales of commercial spirits in that country not only didn't fall but actually rose slightly afterwards, benefiting both the private commercial industry, and the government coffers.
It also created a new legal and taxpaying industry of hobby distillation supplies and advice that further contributed to the economy. Not to mention encouraging the legitimate and safer development and spread of an old and useful craft. It is no accident that many of the advances in home distilling have come out of NZ, population about 3 million, and miles from anywhere.
Even in the unlikely case that legalising home distillation did have a noticeable negative impact on commercial sales and government revenue, so what? Why must the commercial product be automatically given favoured status over the home produced version? We do not require people to eat only at professional restaurants, which have higher food and safety standards than the average home kitchen.
Arguing that home distillation should be illegal on the basis of lost tax revenue through reduced commercial sales is both inconsistent, and not based on any compelling evidence or sound general principle. Small scale home production of spirits for personal consumption does not inherently deprive the government of significant or legitimate revenue, (and indeed it may well increase it slightly), so there is no justification for making hobby distillation illegal on tax revenue grounds.
Health and Safety
When it comes to health and safety reasons, the authorities do have some legitimate concerns about home distillation, though not sufficient to justify its illegal status.
There are three areas of concern: the safety of the distillation equipment and process itself, the quality of the final product, and any possible increase in consumption of alcohol.
mis-labelling?
Equipment and Process Safety
The main safety concern with the design and operation of distillation equipment is that ethanol is both highly flammable above a concentration of about 40% as a liquid, and in the right concentrations as a vapour-air mix it is also potentially explosive. Its dangers in this regard are roughly comparable to petrol (gasoline).
Basic stills are not particularly complicated devices to build or run, and proper still design and operation should eliminate any significant possibility of explosion. Well ventilated distilling areas will not allow the build up of vapours, and the inside of a still during operation almost always has ethanol concentrations way above the explosive range, as the natural behaviour of a still purges all the air (oxygen, ie explosive fuel) at the start of the distillation run.
There is another type of explosive risk with stills, a pressure explosion. If a still is sealed firmly shut during operation then the pressure inside will start building up, and if not somehow released safely it will quickly become a pressure bomb that can be extremely dangerous, even lethal. However, this risk is easily and completely eliminated by designing the still in a way that precludes the possibility of it ever being sealed shut in the first place.
Fire is a risk with distilling. But so are barbeque fires, or general home workshop or cooking practices, such as working with petrol, kerosene, methylated spirits, gas torches (oxy-acetlyene, propane, MAPP, etc), or deep frying food in oil. Safe still design and operation, and the presence of appropriate fire fighting equipment, reduces this risk to a low and acceptable level.
Ethanol fires are easier to control than petrol fires because you can use water effectively and safely on them (a medium mist spray is best). CHECK!!!
Dilution of your product to a maximum 40%abv solves the flammability problem.
People in the general community handle petrol and many other dangerous substances (including legal denatured ethanol in high concentrations of 95 %abv) every day, sometimes in larger quantities than any home distiller would handle their product, and we do so with minimal costs to health and safety. Why is home distilled beverage alcohol any different?
After it legalised home distillation NZ did not experience a rise of injuries or deaths resulting from that hobby. CHECK
Anybody who thinks safety standards are low or of little concern among the online hobby distilling community has clearly not witnessed a keen but over eager and ignorant novice getting their electronic butt publicly kicked by experienced senior members over unsafe practices. The hobby community has safety as it first and highest priority (indeed, some forums have specific threads just for dealing with the safety issue, so that we can all learn from individual mistakes and experiences). This priority on safety is both for the health and safety of all of the members, especially the novices, and also to avoid attracting the attention of the law by someone seriously hurting themselves or innocent bystanders.
It could be argued that the legalisation and the much more open discussion of the hobby that it would allow, would allow the already high safety priority and standards to be raised even higher.
Home distillation of fuel alcohol is legal in many countries (usually with appropriate legal permits), and it uses much bigger stills than the production of drinking alcohol. If that is acceptable from a general safety perspective, then why are our much smaller beverage stills considered unsafe?
Probably the most serious dangers that the vast majority of home distillers face in the practice of their hobby are excessive consumption of their product, and the possible legal hassles they face over making a little bit of nice spirit for themselves.
Product Quality
Home distillers have some advantages over many commercial distilleries. Almost all hobby beverage distillers use a batch system of production (as opposed to a continuous system), which many believe gives a better, cleaner product, and together with both the lack of commercial pressure to get a product out, and the pride of the serious hobbyist, home distillers can match and even surpass high quality commercial product.
Initial testing of hobby distilled alcohol in NZ showed it met the required health & safety standards.
Non-issue, really.
Increased Consumption of Alcohol
A final health concern is that legalising hobby distilling would encourage increased consumption of alcohol (as spirits) in the population. However, given that the number of hobby distillers is unlikely to ever be high, increased overall consumption is unlikely to be a problem. [CHECK the New Zealand experience - did overall alcohol consumption in the community unduly rise after legalising home stilling?]
Summary
The current generation of home distillers owe a huge debt to those who came before us and were prepared to freely share their hard won knowledge and insight, something the internet has made infinitely easier to do.
The modern, internet era of home distilling has established its basic credentials, particularly in light of the New Zealand experience. It is absurd that it is still illegal everywhere else to privately produce small, non-commercial quantities of a commonly used and otherwise commercially legal product, especially one that has been widely and safely produced for hundreds of years by many thousands of private individuals the world over. The international online hobby distilling community look to their fellow practitioners in New Zealand with an envious eye.
The full process of producing good quality spirits involves designing and building the equipment, mastering fermentation techniques (including experimenting with recipes) and still operation, making the cuts, the ageing and maturing process, and the final tasting and blending. It intricately combines many aspects of physical, biological and engineering science, with workshop and craft skills, the culinary arts, and social history, into a complex and very satisfying experience. With, of course, a nice pay off at the end of it all.
The cat is well and truly out of the bag with home distilling, and it is never going back in. Around the world there is already a substantial and rapidly growing hobby community who safely practice small scale, hobby level home distillation, strictly for personal consumption and pleasure, producing a wide range of often unique quality spirits, and there are no good reasons why this otherwise civic minded, law abiding community and their peaceful, rewarding hobby should remain illegal.
On this issue, the law is truly an ass, and it needs to change.
well done. with well planed out arguments it could one day be less of a dream and more of a reality. unfortunately it will mean standing out and being counted, something difficult with a hobby such as ours.