My husband use to make his own Kalula. Men know such things by instinct I think...:O) and dad was a policeman, he also had a still on Sugar Island where he and the sheriff of the island made shine... Long after prohibition ended...
It is perfectly legal to make beer and spirits, wine and brandy for one's own consumption -- even to entertain with it. You just cant bottle it up and sell it.
Alexander Hamilton invented the first alcohol tax in the 1790's as his contribution to the "tax that fellow behind the tree" tradition of crapweasel-taxes. The smartass factor was that the tax would fall almost exclusively on farmers beyond the Appalachians who were not very effectively represented in the Congress. He promptly got a tax revolt, and President Washington was troubled to go out to western Pennsylvania at the head of a column of militiamen to restore order. (It was the only time in American history that a president appeared at the head of a column of troops.) Hamilton went with him, no doubt under armed guard!
And then the tax was quietly repealed. Way to go, Alex.