An Ohio man is asking the Supreme Court to strike down a federal ban on home distilling that dates back more than 150 years, setting up a constitutional fight over whether Congress can prohibit a hobby that takes place entirely inside a person's own kitchen.
John Ream, a former aerospace engineer who runs Trek Brewing Company in Newark, Ohio, with his wife Kristin, wants to distill small quantities of spirits for personal use. Federal law permits qualifying home production of beer and wine, but producing even a single ounce of distilled spirits at home is a federal felony that can carry significant fines and prison time.
«It is perfectly legal to make beer at home or to make wine at home, but if you make even a single ounce of distilled spirits at home, it is a federal felony,» said Robert Alt, an attorney representing Ream and president of the Buckeye Institute, an Ohio-based think tank.
Ream's interest in beverage-making began when his then-fiancée gave him a home-brewing kit. «Brewing was the perfect combination of art and science, and my engineering brain just totally latched onto it,» Ream told the Buckeye Institute. After years of experimentation, the couple opened their commercial brewery. But when Ream turned to distilled spirits, he encountered a different legal regime.
The distinction has deep historical roots. The federal government began taxing distilled spirits in 1791, a levy that helped spark the Whiskey Rebellion several years later. In 1868, amid concerns about tax evasion, Congress enacted a broader system regulating distilled spirits, including restrictions on where distilleries could operate. More than a century and a half later, that old tax fight has produced a modern constitutional question.
«To what extent can Congress regulate local non-commercial otherwise lawful activity that you engage in, in your very home?» Alt said. «That really is the core question in this case.»
Two federal appeals courts have reached opposite conclusions. The Sixth Circuit ruled against Ream in April, finding that the home-distilling restriction could lawfully support the collection of federal liquor taxes. Eleven days earlier, the Fifth Circuit reached the opposite conclusion in a separate challenge, holding that Congress' taxing authority did not justify the restriction.
Both disputes have now reached the Supreme Court, though the justices have not agreed to hear either case. «The Supreme Court gets a lot of petitions for review every year, between 7,000 and 10,000,» Alt said. «And the court, at this point, only hears about 60 cases.»
The federal government argues that the restriction remains a permissible part of the system used to protect and collect federal excise taxes on distilled spirits. Ream and other home-distilling advocates contend that collecting those taxes does not give Congress the authority to prohibit the hobby altogether.
The debate has also drawn attention within the home-brewing community. The American Homebrewers Association, a trade group based in Boulder, Colorado, said this year that it does not have an official position on legalizing home distilling. It noted that some of its members distill at home and emphasized education and safety around beverage-making hobbies.
For home brewers interested in moving from beer or wine to whiskey, gin or other spirits, the dispute could ultimately determine whether a hobby long prohibited under federal law can move out of the commercial distillery and into the home.
«This would be a wonderful opportunity to raise a glass to freedom and to limited government,» Alt said.