US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2026/apr/11/appeals-court-ruling-home-distilling-ban-unconstitutional

US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

Judge said ban, which originated in Reconstruction era to thwart liquor tax evasion, actually reduced tax revenue

The Guardian

As tourists to sketchy places in Asia discovered, methanol poisoning is a real risk, even from large scale distillation. It is the quality control that matters. Illegal stills make quality control impossible, so legalisation and government certified testing can make it safe.

However, this ruling is not about alcohol, it is about dissolving Federal authority exercised via the trade and commerce clause of the Constitution.

Well, I live in a country with both huge distillation culture and significantly non-zero number of methanol poisonings, and they never happen from home brewing. It's really hard to homebrew/distill methanol in a quantity enough to poison you in an otherwise ethanol solution (which acts as an antidote).

It's so rare this thread is literally the first time I've heard about possibility of methanol poisoning from homebrewing.

Methanol poisonings happen from bootlegging, where someone in the chain of supply sells industrial methanol as an ethanol, because the first one is cheaper, easier to obtain and untaxed.