Prison House Hooch | modern rubber magazine (2023)

Alcohol has been with us since the dawn of civilization, under the best of circumstances and the worst.

It has survived countless attempts to limit and banish it and has prevailed thanks to human ingenuity. No matter the situation, men have always found a way to beg, borrow, steal, or make their own alcohol. Nowhere is this unruly spirit more evident than in prison. Which makes sense. After all, alcohol is great for stress, and there are fewer stressful environments than obstacles.

Homemade prison liquor has a variety of names, including Juice, Hops, Raisins, Beer, Chalk, Dollar, Hooch, and Pruno (a once-popular ingredient was prunes, but the name now applies to any home-brewed fruit), and the industry likely started around one week after history's first prisoner was taken to his cell. And try as they might, man could never stop it. It's become such an ingrained part of prison culture that many wardens have accepted it as part of the show.

Reggie Kray of the Kray brothers, England's most notorious crime family, was recently denied parole after serving 29 years in prison for "not abstaining from alcohol in prison". He refuses to stop and apparently won't let the authorities force him. So he's still in prison.

Drink.

It's almost impossible to stop because, firstly, the prisoners will do whatever it takes to get it, and secondly, the alcohol is incredibly easy to make. All you need is a little knowledge, some crafting and time. And there are plenty of all three in every prison. Most recipes include fresh fruit, and guards at some prisons have even banned fruit from inmates' meals in hopes of reducing production. The always imaginative inmates were later spotted making Pruno with frosting on cakes, bread, jam and milk. Proving that where there's a will there's a way to get knocked down.
To find out how easy it is to make Pruno, we brought two teams together to test different recipes. The first is a proven classic, the second is a modern twist.

Rezept Nr. 1: Picea Classica(by Hank Soboski)

This recipe is part of prison lore as it was detailed in a famous poem by prison poet Jarvis Masters called Recipe for Prison Pruno. (See bottom of page.) Using only the poem as a reference, I continued.

What will you need:
A resealable bag (Ziploc or heavy-duty garbage bag with elastic bands)
10 peeled oranges
1 8 oz can of fruit cocktail
50 sugar cubes
6 tablespoons tomato sauce
tap water

Travel 1
I placed the oranges and fruit cocktail in a large Ziploc bag, sealed it and spent fifteen minutes lovingly squeezing and mashing it until it was the consistency of a paste. I added 16 ounces of tap water and closed the bag.

Run hot water over the bag for fifteen minutes, then wrap in three towels to isolate the heat and start the fermentation process. The bag turns out to be the size, weight and temperature of a newborn, and you might start to have warm feelings for the cute little creature. That is normal. Especially when you realize that when this baby grows up, it's going to get you drunk. I hid my baby in a safe, dark place and let it rest for forty-eight hours.

Travel 3
I unwrapped the towels and found my baby had grown well. I assumed this was due to the gases released in the fermentation process. I opened the bag and it smelled a bit like rotten fruit. I added fifty sugar cubes and six packs of Heinz ketchup. After closing the bag, I waited for the sugar cubes to dissolve and kneaded the pulp a little to ensure a good blend. It occurred to me that I might as well have used cubed sugar. I ran her under hot water for thirty minutes to comfort the bacteria, then wrapped my baby in towels and took her back to a safe, dark place.

Day 4 and Day 5
I kept an eye on my prodigy. The sugar accelerated the fermentation process and by day five I felt like my baby was thinking of crashing into something he didn't want to clean up. I opened a corner of the bag and took out some gas.

Day 6 to Day 8
I would warm the bag in the sink for fifteen minutes each day, then wrap it in towels. I noticed that once a floating mold colony had settled, it grew very well. Was my baby sick? Was that normal? Wasn't there a hotline I could call? I returned it to its safe place and hoped for the best.

Travel 9
With a mixture of anticipation and fear, I unpacked the bag and opened it. I stuck perfumed toilet paper up my nose, just in case, but the bouquet still looked like a rotten glove on my snout. My baby had turned into some sort of Frankenstein creature with terrible personal hygiene. I quickly removed the large chunks of rotten fruit and the spectacularly successful mold colony, then strained the rest through a tea strainer.

the taste test
I had to fight hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution and instinct to get the first bite. Even with a noseful of toilet paper, my first instinct was to vomit up what my lizard brain was telling me was deadly poison.
But I remembered reacting the same way to my first sip of whiskey and continued. I've scrapped the idea of ​​mixing it, with drain cleaner, gasoline, whatever.

I forced the value of a cup down hoping it would eventually get easier. This didn't happen. Each new sip was a new insult. I added ice hoping to mask the taste or at least kill some of the bacteria. Not only did my tongue taste like rotten, moldy fruit, but it tingled as huge colonies of bacteria emerged and fought back.

After struggling and swallowing half of the first pint, my stomach began to rebel. I could imagine what he was thinking: 'My God, they're poisoning us! And look at that shit, the motherfucker keeps tearing it down! Are we committing suicide? Missed a fucking meeting?
To be honest, classic Pruno tastes like a spilled bottle of Thunderbird in a bin full of rotting garbage. Also, a stray dog ​​licks him off the alley floor and throws him up on a dirty hubcap.

am I getting drunk? A liter of Pruno gave me a slight buzz. It's not a "brandy glass on the porch" buzz. But a miserable, stomach-churning, moody buzz. The equivalent of secretly having sex with a toothless drug-addicted whore. It's sex, yes, but you feel more horrified than satisfied.
I've never felt much sympathy for our country's prisoners, but now I do.

Receita Nr. 2: Rich's Orange Jack(by Nick Plumber)

I got this recipe from a recently paroled friend of mine, Rich, who experimented a lot with brewing while paying off his debt to society.

What will you need:
A sealable bag.
3 containers of concentrated orange juice
1 ½ cups sugar
3 rolls
tap water

Travel 1
Rich informed me that the scones are added for the yeast content, which explains why this recipe calls for a third less than the classic recipe.Ersion During his incarceration, he mixed this mash in a garbage bag hidden in a plastic prison trunk. Otherwise, I used a garbage bag and a five-gallon plastic bucket. I gathered all the ingredients and tied the bag shut so the gases could expand. Under Rich's system, he let it sit for five days, "burping" the bag once a day to release the gas. Rich suggests the best time to do this is right after the lights are turned off, as the guards won't show up for a while and the smell of the fermenting sap is sharp and unmistakable.

Travel 2
I didn't notice much activity. The bag wasn't filling with carbon dioxide and I was worried I hadn't added enough sugar to start the yeast. I decided to be patient.

Travel 3
The pouch was a little swollen, but not enough to burp.

Travel 4
The pouch was starting to swell, so I opened it up a little and squeezed it. A strong smell, like a screwdriver with a hint of rising bread, filled the room. According to Rich, this was abornSign.

Travel 5
I burped the bag again. The smell was alwaysveryAcid. Rich had warned me about this, so I added another ½ cup of sugar and sealed the bag.

Travel 6
The moment of truth. I installed a panel, opened the bag and looked inside. A frothy mass of soggy bread floated on a thick orange liquid. To keep the process as authentic as possible, we filter the drink through an old t-shirt. We serve it on the rocks with a touch of morbid angst.

the taste test
After smelling it, Ivan refused to drink it until we questioned his manhood. He took a sip, ran straight to the bathroom and threw up.

Certainly not a good sign, but the rest of us were made of sterner stuff. It smelled like rotten underwear and looked like Satan's sex urine, but that was for drunken science, by God.

At three, the rest of the tasters and I take a sip at the same time. We grimaced at the same time. It tasted as bad as it looked and smelled. Like a screwdriver that's been out in the sun for a week. Baker put his down and refused to take another sip. Dignan took another small sip, shuddered, and gave up.

who left everything to me. I braced myself and finished the rest of the glass. Surprisingly it stayed down. I felt like there was a decent amount of alcohol in it, but was there enough to induce the kind of high that made me forget a rocky five to ten year time?

I scoffed at the broken plate in the dressing room and calmly filled another glass. In the big house they would all be my dogs. I added more ice and let it sit for a bit; chilling might help. I tried to put myself in the mood of a prisoner:I haven't had a drink in months or more and that's it. No liquor stores, bars, whiskey bottles tucked under my roommate's bed. anything. Just monotony, brooding danger, and a strong desire to get out of my head, if only for an hour.

I exhaled completely and drank another glass. Vinegar, fermented, with a reddish ham aftertaste. I got a slight buzz, but I don't think I could use another glass. It was alcohol, fine, but two glasses was my limit outside of prison.

As a reward, I poured myself a nice glass of Scotch to rinse my mouth out and thought about the experiment: It works, yes, but I wouldn't recommend it unless in the most desperate of conditions.

—Plumber's nickname

Recipe for Prison Pruno
A poem by Jarvis Masters
Take ten peeled oranges
Jarvis Masters, it's the verdict and verdict of this court,
an 8-ounce bowl of fruit cocktail,
that the requested information is true,
Squeeze the fruit into a small plastic bag
the jury before, on this date,
and add the juice along with the puree,
discovers that the penalty will be death,
Add 16 ounces of water and seal the bag tightly.
this court ruled on August 20, 1991
Put the bag in your sink
rejected his request for a new trial,
and heat under hot running water for 15 minutes.
It is the order of this court that you suffer death,
Wrap towels around the bag to keep it warm for fermentation.
said punishment within the walls of San Quentin,
Keep the bag in your cell for 48 hours without touching it.
where will they kill you
Time passed,
in the manner provided for by law,
Add 40 to 60 cubes of white sugar,
the date will be set later by the court in an enforcement order.
six teaspoons of tomato sauce,
You are in the custody of the Warden of San Quentin,
then heat again for 30 minutes,
last trailer to be held by him
Secure the bag as before,
decision on your complaint.
then store the pouch intact again for 72 hours.
It's so neat.
Warm up for 15 minutes daily.
In testimony of
After 72 hours
I offer my hand as judge of this High Court,
remove the puree with a spoon,
and had the seal of that tribunal affixed to it.
Pour the remaining serving into two 18 oz. Cups.
May God have mercy on his soul.