Producing hard liqour in any volume, except as fuel, is quite illegal, and discussing it online is foolish.
Back to the law library.....
Returning from the library and have discovered I had been under a misconception in that there are a number of hoops to jump through first to be 100% legal.
My bad.
I guess you are right. I was in the wine business (actually vineyard) before 2001 before Bill H.R. 3249 was passed making it legal to produce for home consumption, but one should note the numbers involved. Speaking from personal experience, they are crazy hard on violations.
Beer and wine are fine, distilled drinkables are not (without the proper licenses and all) even for personal consumption. A good parallel to how additional gun laws only affect the law abiding citizen.
You cannot distill alcohol legally without a permit from the feds, regardless of whether or not you sell any. To do so, means you are operating a distilled spirits plant.
http://www.ttb.gov/spirits/faq.shtml#s3
You may own a small still for water distillation, or to extract essential oils, and those may be up to state and local laws, but for alcohol, that's big brother.