No, it's not legal, but it's a tax thing rather than health or anything like that. You have to have a distiller's licence (also known as a rectifier's licence) and be able to demonstrate that you are a commercial producer intending, with some exceptions, to produce at least 3200 pints of the stuff. Licences are issued by the tax authorities, HMRC. As a producer you have to account for the tax payable on the booze and as this tax is an Excise Duty, failure to hold a license and hence to account for the tax falls under criminal law (unlike income tax which is a civil law responsibility).
That said, people have been known to get away with it.never trust a man in a blue trench coat, never drive a car when you're dead |