WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide the legality of a federal ban on the home distilling of alcoholic spirits that was enacted in 1868 after the Civil War to crack down on liquor tax evasion, according to Reuters.
The dispute pits President Donald Trump’s administration, which is defending the law, against challengers who argue the home-distilling prohibition exceeds Congress’s authority under the Constitution, Reuters reported. The court took up the administration’s appeal of a lower court’s decision against the ban. The justices are expected to hear arguments in the coming months and issue a ruling by the end of June.
Congress passed the ban after the Civil War of 1861-1865 to protect federal revenue. The current version of the law subjects violators to up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine, according to Reuters. Americans may legally brew beer and make wine at home — home brewing was legalized federally in 1978 — but distilling spirits at home has remained a federal crime.
The case reached the Supreme Court because lower courts split. In April, the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared the law unconstitutional, calling it an unnecessary and improper means for Congress to exercise its power to tax, Reuters reported. Days later, the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law, calling it a “necessary and proper means” of collecting the federal excise tax on distilled spirits. The 5th Circuit ruling was a victory for the nonprofit Hobby Distillers Association and four of its members, and it upheld a 2024 ruling by U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman in Fort Worth, Texas, barring enforcement against those plaintiffs.
Attorneys general from 15 Republican-led states, including Ohio, Florida and Idaho, filed a brief backing the challengers and urging the justices to resolve the split. “Unlike a good whiskey,” they wrote, according to Reuters, “this split will not age well.” The Justice Department, urging the court to take the case, argued the government has a substantial interest in safeguarding tax revenue. “Congress restricted home distilling 160 years ago in response to an extensive history of evasion of the distilled-spirits tax,” its lawyers wrote, noting the spirits tax now generates billions of dollars a year.
Why it matters: the ruling will settle whether a Reconstruction-era revenue law can still criminalize a hobby that supporters compare to home brewing, and it will test how far Congress’s taxing power reaches into private, non-commercial activity inside the home.
What happens next: the court will set an argument date, receive full briefing from the administration, the challengers and the states on both sides, and rule by the end of its term in June. Until then, the ban remains in force except where courts have barred its enforcement against specific plaintiffs. Read the Reuters report here.
