Bootleggin' in the burbs

Last week, the Washington Post reported the find of something special in Fairfax County, Virginia: "someone was making moonshine in the heart of suburbia."\nUnder federal rules administered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, you must qualify as a "distilled spirits plant" (see the ATF FAQ's page at their Web site for details) before you can legally produce alcohol with a still. Now, the ATF does permit you to own a small still (defined as having the capacity to distill no more than one gallon at a time). And you can use that still to do such wonderful things as producing your own distilled water! However, if you "accidentally" make alcohol while attempting to perform some legitimate functions with your still, like producing "essential oils by a solvent method," and happen to get alcohol as a byproduct, then you, my friend, are a renegade. Beware! Part 170 of Title 27, Code of Federal Regulations, says the ATF has the right to require manufactures to give them the "name and address of each customer."\nOf course, I don't know why you would even have to use a still anyway. You see, sections 24.75 and 25.205 allow you to produce 100 gallons of wine per calendar year and another 100 gallons of beer "for personal or family use" (26 U.S.C. 5042). Now, I don't know how much you drink. But, a couple hundred gallons ought to hold you for a bit.\nLet's face it though; beer and wine just lack the kick of a Mason jar full of good ol' moonshine. Hell, most moonshine has been known to exceed 130 proof. And to top it off, you can make your own bathtub bourbon for a couple bucks a gallon.\nIf you think that mass producing cheap liquor is a good idea, you, my friend, are not alone. Although the popularity peaked during the period of prohibition (1920-33), it is far from gone. "With hundreds of thousands of gallons of the liquor making their way out of southern Virginia and North Carolina" each year, bootlegging is still big business (Washington Post, 10-17).\nThe government doesn't really care about moonshine. The government is primarily concerned with bootlegging. Now, it's true that things can go wrong during the distilling process, things can explode and the whole batch can become poisoned (nothing sours a good bunch of mash like killing a couple of people). This is bad; nobody wants those poor hillbillies to suffer such a horrible fate. But, let's be honest, the government does not have a problem with people making moonshine. It has a problem with people selling it. According to the tax policy center, "federal tax revenues from alcoholic beverages totaled nearly $7.7 billion in 2001."\n Whenever moonshine is sold the government misses out on the taxes it would have collected had the purchaser bought legally distilled liquor. This is the root of the conflict between bootleggers and the Man. The Man wants to collect taxes, and moonshiners don't want to pay them.\n Traditionally the moonshiners would sell their product locally using word of mouth as their advertisement ("Hey Jessie, Jeb sho' does make some good rotgut!"). However, when the market develops and the producer decides that it's time to expand, the liquor has to travel and then it becomes bootlegging.\nWily bootleggers devised special methods to avoid capture. Among the most popular methods was to "soup up" the engines of their cars and drive like hell. There are some who believe that this is the root of the development of stock car racing in the South.\nMaybe moonshine is bad after all.