A U.S. appeals court on Friday declared unconstitutional a nearly 158-year-old federal ban on home distilling, calling it an unnecessary and improper means for Congress to exercise its power to tax.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled in favor of the nonprofit Hobby Distillers Association and four of its 1,300 members.
They argued that people should be free to distill spirits at home, whether as a hobby or for personal consumption including, in one instance, to create an apple-pie-vodka recipe.
The ban was part of a law passed during Reconstruction in July 1868, in part to thwart liquor tax evasion, and subjected violators to up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
That and home made hooch can sometimes make people go blind if they do it wrong and there’s too much (I wanna say?) methanol in the batch.
Thats actually a myth, it’s basically nothing in sugar and grain based mashes and can be mitigated easily with fruit mashes. It’s one of those things that’s been perpetuated through scaremongering, almost all cases have been purposeful methanol consumption or adulteration - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_methanol_poisoning_incidents
The very first incident I clicked on makes it look like it’s definitely an issue. Under Mexico on the site you linked-
Government restrictions on liquor and beer sales during the COVID-19 pandemic may have exacerbated the problem of illegal production and sale of alcoholic beverages in Mexico. Reportedly, 35 people died in 2020 in just one mass poisoning incident due to methanol tainted drinks
Looking into those incidents further most of those appear to be cases where the alcohol was adulterated with methanol rather than as a result of distillation.
That occurred because the US government poisoned the supply of alcohol during prohibition.