HOOCH-Crude, Poor Quality, Often Toxic Alcohol!

Hooch is a term for cheap, poor-quality alcohol made in crude settings. If prepared incorrectly, it can cause serious injury or even death. It is nearly impossible to tell whether hooch is fit to consume before actual consumption.

Hooch production

Like other spirits, hooch is made using fermentation and distillation. Makers heat water, yeast, and sugar (often from fruit waste) to produce a fermented mixture in a large pot. Fermentation creates alcohol, but as more sugar is consumed by the yeast, it becomes inefficient and finally stops.

Distillation separates ethanol(consumable alcohol) from this mixture by precisely heating it to its boiling point. For hooch makers, the setup for this process often includes a large vat where the fermented mixture is boiled, a pipe that carries the alcoholic fumes, and another pot where these fumes condense. Multiple rounds of distillation strengthen the final product.

An inherent risk

The fermented mixture contains not just ethanol but also highly toxic methanol. During distillation, both ethanol and methanol are concentrated. If done wrong, the end product can have a high concentration of methanol.

Methanol has a lower boiling point (64.7°C) than ethanol (78.4°C). This means that during distillation when the mixture reaches 64.7°C, the pot collecting concentrated alcohol begins to fill up with a dangerous chemical. This must be discarded for the end product to be safe.

Overheating the mixture also does not help as it produces a more watered-down end-product, as water also evaporates and condenses in the collecting pot. Unlike commercial distillers, hooch-makers have no temperature control, making distillation inherently risky.

Adulteration and its risks

To compensate for overboiling, adulterants are often added to increase hooch’s potency. Some commonly used ones include organic waste, battery acid, and industry-grade methanol, all of which are toxic.

Adulterants make hooch cause blackouts, memory loss, and high drunkenness, even if low quantities are consumed. In extreme cases, when adulterants like methanol are present in high concentrations, the hooch can be deadly.

Effects of spurious liquor

Methanol can cause impaired vision, high toxicity, and metabolic acidosis, a condition in which the body produces excessive formic acid that the kidneys are unable to flush out. In India, alcohol poisoning is often treated with the intravenous administration of a mixture of ethanol and water. Ethanol inhibits methanol’s conversion into toxins and helps in flushing it out of the body either naturally or through dialysis.