They did have to give them a special gun so they weren’t killed by bears though.

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.

Man, a lot of people here just repeating the same old myths and police lines about moonshine making you blind and stills exploding. Not to be that guy but do some research.

Methanol poisoning is hugely overstated, sugar and grain mash don’t produce enough for it to be dangerous. Fruit mash can, but it’s easy to mitigate. Most cases of methanol poisoning are either the person purposefully drinking methanol or from alcohol that’s been adulterated with it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_methanol_poisoning_incidents

Stills can start fires, if improperly operated, but so can gas hobs and we’re not calling for a license to operate those. You really need to be making industrial quantities at pressure for it to explode. Looking at it as a cause of fires in countries where it’s legal indicate that it’s a non-issue. If you’re worried about forest fires, don’t make it so people need to hide in the woods and they’ll do it at home.

That’s actually a myth, grain and sugar mash produce very little methanol, way below the harmful amount. Fruit mash can produce harmful amounts, but can be easily mitigated. Most cases of methanol poisoning are from people purposefully consuming it or from alcohol that has been adulterated with methanol - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_methanol_poisoning_incidents

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

As I understand it the risk of methanol poisoning from home distillation is hugely overstated in grain and sugar based mash and can be effectively mitigated in fruit based mash with fairly simply.