and if you're going to distill (should it ever become legal to do at home), you'll have all those equipment costs, opportunity costs, materials costs as well. plus you have to build or buy your still, still more cost (pun intended). and if you want to make whisky, you'll also have the cost of barrels, storage, etc. I'm with Denny, I recognize the costs, but I don't care. This is my hobby, and compared to fishing, golf, flying, etc, it's relatively cheap.
an additional cost with whisky, is the angels share (in addition to the real cost of cooperage & storage space). you lose approx 2% a year in the barrel. I suspect you'd lose more in a small barrel, more surface in contact with the wood relative to total volume. but using the 2% figure, that means you're losing almost 25% of your whisky when aging to a standard 12 years. Totally scary when you contemplate a 21, 25, 30 yr whisky (or older). makes you realize why those whiskies are so expensive.
beer or whisky; you're not going to make a comparable product without significant expense. either it's worth it to you or it's not.