Raised and addressed in an earlier post on an earlier article on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47736298#47737600

As I said, this happens when someone tries to sell illegally produced trash created not by brewing but with sugar, chemical essence, and whatever they've mistaken for ethanol. The tax on alcohol creates a black market and some people taking part in it are either dumb or lazy and those are the cases you hear about.