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

theguardian.com

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

#161

Post by toxik »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #125
donatj wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The antidote to methanol is just ethanol. If you find yourself drinking something untrustworthy you can at least cure yourself with a chaser of an equivalent amount of everclear. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol_toxicity#Treatment

The way you're saying it is deeply irresponsible. The way to deal with methanol poisoning is not "just ethanol", and you cannot "cure yourself" by drinking everclear. If you ever find out you have been drinking methanol by all means do drink safe spirits if you have immediate access to them (after throwing up what you can if you're still in time), but get medical help now . Ethanol will not cure you from methanol poi…

Worth noting that even in clinical settings, ethanol has largely been replaced by fomepizole (Antizol) as the preferred antidote. It's more predictable, easier to dose, and doesn't come with the side effect of making a critically ill patient drunk. Ethanol is the field expedient, not the standard of care.

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

#162

Post by btreecat »

cubefox wrote: post #88
angry_octet wrote: post #86

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 Constitut…

> Illegal stills make quality control impossible, so legalisation and government certified testing can make it safe. Another way to increase safety is to reduce the availability of illegal stills without quality control by enforcing the ban. (Anyone who thinks otherwise presumably also thinks all hard drugs should be legalized since this presumably wouldn't lead to an increase in consumption.)

>Another way to increase safety is to reduce the availability of illegal stills without quality control by enforcing the ban.

I can see you're lacking some knowledge on what makes up a still, as well as it's completely legal use for distillation of water.

A still is just a bucket with a heat source and some vapor collector and condenser. It's easy to build from a couple of pickle jars and hot glue if you're determined.

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

#163

Post by ciupicri »

ihalip wrote: post #144
inglor_cz wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The eastern part of Czechia (Moravia) plus Slovakia will distill anything that grows, too, and methanol poisonings are almost non-existent here. Don't underestimate centuries of tradition and know-how. The only exception was a methanol affair 15 years ago, but that had nothing to do with home distillation. In that particular case, two bozos inspired by a badly understood Wikipedia article bought and mixed enormous am…

Not underestimating, but I've seen first hand how these are made, from my uncles and neighbours as I'm from rural Romania. The equipment may not be clean, people tend to get drunk because QA is literally drinking it and that affects the next batch, the precursor fruits could be half rotten, etc. I appreciate homemade spirits because of the genuine taste, but be aware of the conditions they're made in.

> The equipment may not be clean

Same could be said about food: dishes, knives etc. Anyway the high temperature should kill some of the germs.

> the precursor fruits could be half rotten

So what?

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

#164

Post by bluGill »

decimalenough wrote: post #152
gadflyinyoureye wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be honest here: there is no benefit to alcohol (for example wine) and is only detrimental. As a true French person who does want the government paying for "stupid shit" you need to call for the end of wine making and its consumption. But I guess that might be the debate line of which you spoke.

You must be fun at parties? Some forms of alcohol are tasty and all of them loosen inhibitions, which is beneficial for both recreation and procreation. Obviously there are downsides too, but booze is popular for very good reasons.

You don't need alcohol to be silly or talk to people. Various religions reject alcohol completly and yet manage just fine.

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

#165

Post by eru »

bamboozled wrote: post #145
eru wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you need to distill your spirits? If you really need alcohol, can't you drink undistilled beverages to have 'fun'?

Why would you drink an undistllled beverage, do you mean alcohol free ? I remember being in college a lot of Muslim kids coming to our parties drinking alcohol because we didn’t care and asking us not to tell anyone…Sake is wonderful.

> Why would you drink an undistllled beverage, do you mean alcohol free ?

Many people enjoy drinking beer and wine. These are undistilled.

Vodka and whiskey are examples of distilled beverages.

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

#166

Post by btreecat »

akersten wrote: post #40
mattmaroon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually a myth. I’ll have to see if I can find the papers I read but mass spectrometry has shown that methanol comes out throughout the entire process. The idea that things come out at their boiling temperature is a drastic oversimplification. Methanol is really only present in significant amounts in fruit mashes because it comes from fermentation of pectin. Grain or sugar-derived alcohol barely has any at a…

> This is actually a myth. I’ll have to see if I can find the papers I read but mass spectrometry has shown that methanol comes out throughout the entire process. The idea that things come out at their boiling temperature is a drastic oversimplification. Please do find those papers! They may be describing a radical new chemistry that I'm not familiar with. To be clear - methanol boils at 64C and ethanol boils at 78C.…

>To be clear - methanol boils at 64C and ethanol boils at 78C. Are you suggesting that in standard distillation, there is still some non-trace methanol coming over at 78C?

From what I remember, the highest concentration of methanol is in the tails. That should tell you everything.

*EDIT* Found the paper

https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/0b9...

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

#167

Post by eru »

macintux wrote: post #139
eru wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Giving the states free reign to terrorise their populations didn't work out so great. Be careful not to be anachronistic. When the US was a young country, before telegraphs and railways were widespread, most people's primary interface with the government was perhaps their municipality or at the highest level perhaps their county. > The relatively strong federal government of more recent times however seems to have…

"just move" is not always a simple act for the most vulnerable in society.

Moving counties is almost infinitely easier than moving countries, or replacing the entire federal bureaucracy to your liking (instead of the liking of that other guy).

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

#168

Post by bluGill »

reisse wrote: post #153
angry_octet wrote: post #86

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 Constitut…

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 homebre…

this is wrong and dangerious! Home brewing very well can cause methanol poinonings. It doesn't happen often because the process is complex enough to get settup that anyone likey talk to someone (or read a book) and get the simple process to avoid it (throw out the beginnigs of each batch since the harmful stuff comes first).

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

#169

Post by robbomacrae »

gadflyinyoureye wrote: post #138
vladvasiliu wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and I, as someone living in France and paying a hefty part of my income to fund public healthcare, understand that the state would want to limit people doing stupid shit costing the society a fortune in fixing them (though, of course, this just creates a debate on where to draw the line). But isn't the point of non-socialized healthcare, like in the US, that you pay for care out of pocket? Or maybe via your in…

Let's be honest here: there is no benefit to alcohol (for example wine) and is only detrimental. As a true French person who does want the government paying for "stupid shit" you need to call for the end of wine making and its consumption. But I guess that might be the debate line of which you spoke.

"Let's be honest here: there is no benefit to alcohol (for example wine) and is only detrimental." - That is a pretty extreme statement and easily falsifiable.

There are many studies a quick google away that show a much more nuanced take ie [0] and [1]. But the strongest evidence is our most successful societies and civilizations have been intentionally drinking alcohol for ~10000 years [2]. If it was only detrimental then I'm pretty sure it would have worked its way out by now. I acknowledge there are negative issues.

[0]: https://www.webmd.com/diet/ss/slideshow-skinny-cocktails [1]: https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/healthy-drinks/drin... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_alcoholic_beverages

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

#170

Post by hilbert42 »

theodric wrote: post #106
angry_octet wrote: post #86

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 Constitut…

The common knowledge about methanol being a huge risk is wildly overstated in reality, and likely continues in part because it benefits the government for people to believe strongly in the danger and continue to purchase taxed liquor. Distillation does not create new chemicals: there is methanol in your bottle of wine, and distilling that wine into brandy does not change the ratio, it only removes (primarily) water.…

"The common knowledge about methanol being a huge risk is wildly overstated…"

Little doubt you're correct on both counts: risk of methanol ingestion isn't high and likely government worries about a likely shortfall in its coffers. But as I inferred in my comment that risk is minimal in countries with good food/health regulations. HN is read everywhere so that's not always going to be case.

You're absolutely correct about the distillation process and that small amounts of methanol exist in wine, also one's body produces small amount of both MeOH and EtOH that aren't harmful except in very rare individuals who overproduce amounts.

The problem comes when MeOH is deliberately substituted for EtOH. In such circumstances the consumer can receive hundreds of times as much MeOH as the body is used to dealing with. The liver can normally eliminate the small amounts of naturally-produced formaldehyde and formic acid metabolites produced by alcohol dehydrogenase before any damage is done but not so when large amounts are ingested. In fact, the 100 ml figure I quoted for MeOH is at the extreme end of survivability, much lower amounts often kill.

As I said, I'm not against homebrew spirits but it's easy to envisage a situation that without proper controls and a good understanding of the dangers of MeOH substitution by the lay public (together with easy ways of testing for MeOH) that unscrupulous carpetbaggers will somehow find ways of adding MeOH—unfortunately the profit motive often nukes scruples.

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