[Sca-cooks] kumiss and aphrodisiacs

[Jeff Gedney]

>It's like distillation being Massively and Hugely Illegal and No
>Matter How Scientific The Reason, No, You Still Can't Try To 
>Duplicate Any Of Those Nifty Renaissance Distilled Elixers >Because We At The BATF Said So.

Now now, margaret, it is NOT illegal to distill...

It is just illegal to distill WITHOUT paying appropriate excise tax...

...and to facilitate the correct consideration of excise taxes you need to file regular paperwork and an appropriate license, which requires regular and surprise site inspection and records assessment, certain documentable facilities, secure storage, and inspected and approved production equipment, in a nonresidential setting, with all recipes filed in advance with the BATF, and all ingredients and work products accounted for and stored separately.

Failure to do all of these things is called Tax Evasion, and you can get royally hammered for it.

I, myself, have looked into getting the experimental products exemptions and at possibly licensing a still...

The experimental distilled spritis exemption in 27CFR19.65 does not really apply -- its is designed for fuels research --, and the method of getting the exemption ( personal appeal to the ATF director) is difficult and uncertain.  

I have the forty or so pages of application for a regular distilled beverage spirits plant, but the smallest classification there is I believe, 45 THOUSAND gallons a year production.  
The ATF just does not believe and cannot actually concieve that ANYONE would go to the trouble of setting up a still except for comemrcial purposes, so either your are legal commercial plant or a moonshiner, and they are the only two ways they think of you.

... BTW, many of these ATF rules regarding taxes, facilities and paperwork will apply as well to your home brewing and vintning, _if_ you are unwise enough as to break the rules regarding the waiver of tax liability... 

If you sell your product, or give in exchange for any value any wine or beer you home brew, or you produce too much, then the excise tax regulations are no longer waived (and it is just a waiver of Taxes), but then may apply taxes owing to everydrop you have ever produced, and that now also becomes tax evasion.

The BATF is a branch of the Treasury, and has authority to sumarrily seize all your property and jail your moonshining butt, and you can't do a thing about it until you are cleared in court.

They are not an agency one can flout with impunity.

I suggest that everyone out there who home brews or makes wine be thoroughly conversant with the regulations regarding the waiver of taxes, just as a matter of course.

wine exemption is 27CFR24.75 
look here find part 75 and click on the appropriate file: http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/27cfr24_03.html

Beer exemption is 27CFR25.205
look here find part 205 and click on the appropriate file: 
http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/27cfr25_03.html


Capt Elias
Been there, done that, pulled my hair out.

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If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather 
wood, divide the work, and give orders.  Instead, teach them
to yearn for the vast and endless sea. 
  - Antoine de Saint Exupery