Hooch

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Am I really on A Way with Words?

Yes, you are. Who am I talking to?

I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. This is great.

My name is Mary Cook.

Hi, Mary.

I live in Indianapolis, Indiana.

All right.

Okay. Welcome to the program.

Well, thank you. Thank you.

And I’ve wondered this for a long time, only because I come from a good Catholic family, and I have five brothers, and there is always a lot of hooch at our parties. And I wonder, where does the word hooch come from?

A lot of hooch.

Well, you know, I’m sure it comes from something like alcohol or alcohol-related, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t come from the Latin anything.

No.

From the Latin hoochiness?

Yeah, hoochamos, hoochai.

Guardiamus, hoochinus.

No.

I thought, well, maybe I’ll give you guys a try and see if you can come up with an answer.

Now, why would we know about hooch?

Well, I don’t know. See, my family, being good Catholic people, well, my father was German, my mother was Irish, so they worked hard at partying.

I see, I see.

And they lived, well, actually I was born on Grand Island, New York, which is an island that separates Niagara Falls from Buffalo, and it separates the U.S. from Canada. And the family riverfront is there, and of course the family is always there. My five brothers get together almost every weekend in the summertime where they consume copious amounts of hooch.

-huh.

Now for you, what is hooch exactly?

Well, to me, hooch means any sort of alcohol. Beer, maybe moonshine. Someone suggested it might even be an Indian term, but I think that’s stretching it.

You know, actually, it’s not, Mary. That person was not drinking hooch when they told you that it’s an Indian term. It comes from the Hootinoo Village in Alaska, which was known for producing a lot of a really strong brew that was produced by Indians. And it was made available when U.S. soldiers were there in the 1860s.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now, this was a real thing.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Made from molasses. Powerful stuff.

Yeah. Much invection against the drinking of this drink.

Right, right, right.

In the old papers.

Right.

Yeah, made from molasses, made from all different kinds of things, berries, graham flour. And this was one of those drinks that, how can I put it, it’s better gulped than savored, I think.

Is this from personal experience?

No, no. It’s all academic, of course. Throw it back in your mouth. Don’t let it hit your tongue.

That’s right. Everything I know about hooch I learned from dictionaries, I promise.

Well, not everything. But yes, from the town of Hoochinoo, which you’ll appreciate, was on Admiralty Island in Alaska. So it was an island just like the one that, you know, your family.

That I’m from.

Yeah.

Well, we have things in common then.

Hooch.

Right.

I like that. I thought it was just something that, you know, maybe came out of the bootlegging days or things like that.

They actually had a lot of bootlegging that went on between Canada and the United States to Grand Island, where I lived.

Oh, really? You know, there would be boats going across the river, and divers go down every once in a while and find cases still full of all kinds of wonderful things that I’m sure are not drinkable.

Right. It’s like, oh, I know where this is from. You know, this is from the rum-running days.

Yep, yep.

And actually, Alaska had some very strict alcohol laws even before Prohibition. So I think hooch became very popular, the stuff produced by the Tlingit Indians there in Hoochinu.

Yes, T-L-I-N-G-I-T, the Tlingit.

Interesting.

Yeah. I love this description I’m seeing in one of the sources here. They’re describing the Hoochinu alcohol. You’ve got to hear this. Made out of molasses or beans or rice or flour or anything that will ferment. And this person says, I call it squirrel whiskey because two drinks of it makes you want to climb a tree.

Ooh, squirrel whiskey. That’s great. That’s fantastic.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Well, Mary, here’s to you.

Yes.

Think of us next time you read.

Here’s to you.

Thank you. And now I can tell my brother, ha-ha, small change.

All right.

There you go. Thanks so much, Mary.

Bye-bye.

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