[thomasmiller_]

I wouldn't describe it as a particularly "progressive", "neo-puritanical", or "fringe" belief. Tyler Cowen advocates for abstaining from alcohol. While Matt Yglesias doesn't go as far as abstention, he does support higher taxes as a means to curb consumption, both as a way to balance budgets and curb some of the nastier public-health side effects. There's a public policy conversation to be had here.

[foepys]

Taxing alcohol is not straight forward because everybody can make it at home with everyday items. Raise taxes too much and people will start their own basement distilleries which will then send methanol poisoning cases through the roof.

Brewing beer for example is extremely easy. Everybody can do it and there is even a whole community around brewing at home.

[istjohn]

As the article notes, at least in the UK, taxes in the 50's were three times as high. As someone who has distilled alcohol in a garage before, it's incredibly labor intensive at small scales. Brewing beer is doable, but it is not "extremely easy" by any measure, especially if the goal is reasonably decent tasting beer. Alcohol taxes would need to be extremely high before black market alcohol became an issue of any significance.

[lanstin]

Cider is easy and quite good. Nothing as tasty as stuff you made anyways.