When someone suggests a clever loophole, the response is usually “that would never work, the police and the judge will know exactly what you’re doing”. But somehow, a whole industry developed around the “do not do … detailed prohibited thing”.
I guess, because it somehow worked that one time, it became memorable as an exception, while in most cases it wouldn’t fly in court.
The thing you must realize is that despite prohibition public attitude soured on it very quickly and many judges and politicians were themselves partaking in prohibited alcohol. And the situation cannot be compared with marijuana; it was on a whole different magnitude.
The fact is, making home alcohol is super easy. Yeast is omnipresent, and are happy to eat basically any sugar. Wild yeast won't get you alcohol concentrations in the 15-20% like commercial yeasts will, but can easily go up to 8-12%. Apples, grape juice, honey + raisins will all easily make you hard cider, wine, and mead, respectively. If you have a freezer, you can even use freeze distillation to increase the ABV. Banning all ingredients that could be made into alcohol is completely impractical.
I've heard that can be pretty harsh, though I'd be curious to know how it might fair with a little bit of aging, say 6-12 months. It requires a bit more handholding of the batch as well, but there are turbo yeasts that will get to ~14% in 24-48 hours.
I've also come across "triple distilled" turbo yeast that's supposed to be less harsh but not as high ABV.
The whole gun industry revolves around this. Can't have automatic weapons (unless you buy a preban for $10,000-100,000), fine we'll make a trigger that resets after every shot and your finger will be primed for the next one. Barrel is under 16"? There is this thing called an arm brace (legal for now... sigh). Barrel is under 16" and you want a suppressor? Well if you weld the suppressor on, pay the tax stamp, technically it's over 16" so you're good.
Prohibition never had widespread support. People were able to stock up prior to enactment, there were allowances for religious and medicinal use. People made their own alcohol before prohibition and did so after enactment. Enforcement was mostly the “big busts” but it petered out pretty quickly.
So not surprisingly something being illegal or not isn’t the critical factor, it’s the willingness to enforce the law (e.g. marijuana was essentially legal in SF well before the law was changed - you could smoke on the street and the cops wouldn’t do anything).
Yeah that makes sense to me. Wouldn't be surprised if the officials were themselves buying those wine bricks by the box.
So this could work in general in cases where at a high level (federal) the legislation satisfies some puritanical ideological goals, but individually, or at the local/state level, nobody really buys into it so its enforcement is so so.
One of these cream whippers came into my hands recently. It came with a box of 10 chargers, where 1 was missing. I speculate the owner used their new cream whipper once and decided it was too much work to clean. After ~20 years they gave it to the non-profit's yard sale, where I found it.
One charger cartridge is good for maybe a pint of whipped cream. You'd need 4+ chargers for a gallon of whipped cream. A restaurant could easily go through 50 chargers a week.
For everyone thinking of legitimate reasons to purchase this. Keep in mind that you would mostly buy this stuff at a smoke shop. You're not going to a smoke shop for baking supplies...
It’s kind of like a little speeding on the highway. In many places, a lot of people are OK with it and the risk of being ticketed is very low. Yet in other places, it is not OK.
Something being on paper is basically meaningless. It’s all the “soft” cues that we use and you pick up those cues through experience.
I guess, because it somehow worked that one time, it became memorable as an exception, while in most cases it wouldn’t fly in court.