The post-Civil War ban on home distilling is heading to the Supreme Court

Wars are costly. And the Civil War was one of the costliest, with estimates as high as $70 billion (adjust for inflation). Even World War II was a fraction of that cost. The United States government had to pay for it somehow and on top of instituting the first income tax in American history, it also decided to place a flat $2.00 per gallon tax on un-aged corn whiskey.

Americans, notorious for not wanting to pay taxes (especially on whiskey), immediately found ways to avoid paying the tax. When the war ended, the government eventually learned that distillers were thwarting revenue inspectors by making it at home. To make sure the feds got their cut, Congress outlawed home distilling, forcing distillers to operate at “bonded premises.”

That Reconstruction-era law is now being challenged by brave Americans who want to operate home stills, and is on its way to the Supreme Court.

Making booze at home is a pastime Americans have enjoyed for longer than the United States has been a country. George Washington operated the largest American whiskey distillery of his time at Mount Vernon, producing 11,000 gallons of rye whiskey in 1799 alone. Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, and James Madison all brewed or distilled at home. Americans in frontier towns even used their homemade whiskey as currency.

Like so much of American history, the Civil War dramatically reshaped American life. Washington needed to pay to keep the Union intact and took extraordinary measures to do it. On top of the income tax and whiskey tax, it began printing currency for the first time since the Revolutionary War. Inheritance taxes, vice taxes, and the IRS were all born during the Civil War.

A ban on home brewing, however, came much later, when Americans were dodging the tax on distilled spirits by any means necessary. Nowadays, some citizens argue, the law feels outdated—and some courts agree.

The challenge started with John Ream, a former aerospace engineer and brewmaster of Newark, Ohio’s Trek Brewing. Ream caught the beer brewing bug after his wife bought him a home brew kit. But an engineer’s mind doesn’t stop at an over-the-counter kit. He wanted to take his boozing a step further—until he found out that home distilling is a felony, punishable by five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

So Ream challenged the law in court. And he wasn’t the only one. In April 2026, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Ream. But another challenge from Scott McNutt, Rick Morris, Thomas O. Cowdrey III, and John Prince III, was successful. That same month, the Fifth Circuit ruled that the ban overstepped Congressional taxing authority.

The federal government, not willing to give up one of its best moneymakers (taxes on distilled spirits bring in nearly $7 billion annually), took the ruling to the Supreme Court. The government argues that the tax is necessary and convenient for carrying a constitutionally enumerated federal power into effect. The plaintiffs disagree, saying it’s an overreach of federal power.

The thing is, however, you can’t really blame Americans for not wanting to pay the tax. When it was enacted, the retail cost of the whiskey was only one dollar (or less), and the government kept raising the tax until distillers were paying $2.00. Like any intelligent, thirsty person with limited funds and access to cooking material and corn, Americans began making their booze with home stills.

Commercial distillers were far less scrupulous. By 1868, the government was collecting tax on fewer than 7 million gallons of spirits out of an estimated 50 million consumed. It was soon cheaper for companies to simply bribe inspection authorities rather than pay the taxes, splitting profits from untaxed whiskey. In urban areas, distillers used apartment buildings, basements, and tenements for commercial-scale production of alcohol, where inspectors couldn’t reach.

The Sixth Circuit ruling cited home distilling as aiding the tax evasion, making the ban necessary. Whether the Supreme Court will agree is anyone’s guess. A ruling is expected around June 2027.

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