" The most destructive of these was a “duty of twenty cents on each and every gallon” of grain alcohol, collectible at the distillery. The duty increased across the Civil War to a final level in 1864 of some $2 per gallon, or $30 today.14 The alcohol tax was intended to assess beverage alcohol, but it failed to exclude industrial and illuminating alcohol. The high tax, raising the price of those alcohols to about $2.50 per gallon, drove the fuel out of the market just as petroleum-derived kerosene was entering it. "

― Richard Rhodes , Energy: A Human History