Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US, esp. prison) illicitly distilled liquor, often made from surprisingly unorthodox ingredients.

1895		Mirror of Life 1 June 15/3: The manufacture of distilled spirits, locally known as hoochinoo, has been carried on by the natives of Alaska for a long period [...] Hoochinoo is nothing more or less than raw alcohol, being distilled mainly from brown sugar or molasses and corn meal.
1898		Klondike Nugget 20 July 1/1: The race was a short one, and upon being overhauled, boat 232 proved to contain another six kegs of the forbidden joy dispensing ‘hooch’ [DA].
1913–14		Van Loan ‘No Business’ in Taking the Count 158: Synthetic hooch, made of something almost as good.
1927		H.C. Witwer Classics in Sl. 71: He slips her a bottle of hooch which he tells her to drink on the day she is scheduled to be dragged to the altar by this goof Paris.
1930		J. Lait Gangster Girl 13: Rubber, hootch, grain, autos or —.
1930		E. Glyn Flirt and Flapper 33: Flirt: What is ‘Hootch’? [...] Flapper: Re-distilled, denatured alcohol and a few flavourings.
a.1948		(con. early 1930s) C. McKay Harlem Glory (1990) 39: Folks afflicted with a Prohibition hangover who drink hooch like you drink medicine. They won’t touch good liquor.
1952		C. Hamilton Men of the Und. 185: Lower-grade hooch was made from straight alcohol with a little coloring and a few drops of sherry.
1958		Casey ‘Kid’ Motsisi ‘Kid Hangover’ Casey and Co. (1978) 15: I could do with some hooch. But I know that midnite party hooch is always ‘doctored’ with methylated spirits.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Mama Black Widow 69: Soldier’s visits to the bathroom with the hooch.
1977		E. Bunker Animal Factory 80: Want some? It’s pretty fuckin’ good hooch.
1983		N. Heard House of Slammers 39: Ryan’s real trouble [...] especially when he’s drinking that hootch the inmates make.
1987		B. Chatwin Songlines 39: He would [...] get drunk on his home-made hooch.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 70: Hootch [...] any type of homemade alcoholic beverage. Also used to indicate legal, manufactured liquor that has been smuggled into the prison.
1996		P. Howard The Joy (2015) [ebook] Me guts are in rag order. It’s the hooch that does it to you, corrodes away your innards.
1996		J. Cameron It Was An Accident 6: Had to make do with blow all the time in the nick. Touch that hooch in there and you’re gone.
2000		Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Hootch: Homemade (or cellmade) alcohol.
2004		(con. 1990) N. ‘Razor’ Smith A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun 337: The screws turned a blind eye to hooch and drugs.
2006		B. Matthews Intractable [ebook] Fred distilled the hooch from pineapple juice and yeast stolen from the prison bakery.
2018		C. Hammer Scrublands [ebook] ‘[S]omeone who drinks hooch, smokes dope and goes round shooting small birds. I can’t imagine a priest like that’.
2019		D. Winslow Border [ebook] It took a while, but the alcohol distilled and then ran through a length of rubber hose into a second bucket, producing a drink twice as powerful as the standard homemade prison hooch.
2023		A. Parks To Die in June 132: ‘[W]hoever concocted the mixture could have been unaware it was poisonous, could just have been trying to make a very strong hooch’.

2. (orig. US) alcohol, liquor; also attrib.

[1886		Nat. Police Gaz. 6 Mar. 2/2: Gov. Swineford, of Alaska, takes a hand in editing a newspaper [...] The copy at hand delcares ‘The Hoochenoo must go’].
1897		M.H.E. Hayne Pioneers of the Klondyke 91: This concoction was known as ‘hooch’; and [...] it is doubtful if it is much more poisonous than the whisky itself.
1904		J. London ‘The Hyperborean Brew’ Complete Short Stories (1993) I 502: Drip, drip, drip into the iron pot fell the liquor — hooch, you know.
1911		D. Runyon ‘Far from the Big, Bright Aisle’ 9 July [synd. col.] No nothing but eat and sleep and drink kahooch.
1915		H.L. Wilson Ruggles of Red Gap (1917) 99: Looked like it would help a lot for them to [...] get a few shots of hooch under their belts.
1922		S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 95: I found a place where I can get all the hootch I want at eight a quart.
1929		J. Lait Broadway Melody 102: What’s in this hooch?
1935		J. Conroy World to Win 116: Alan opened a bureau drawer and pulled out a bottle of colorless hooch.
1946		G. Gibson Enemy Coast Ahead (1955) 49: A pretty ordinary sort of party [...] with bags of hooch around.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 302: The all had the shakes [...] whether from hootch or some kind of white stuff.
1958		R. Prather Scrambled Yeggs 33: When the body’s posted, he’s so full of hooch he could stay drunk for a week.
1966		M. Rumaker Exit 3 and Other Stories 168: That’s an old hooch story. Tell me another.
1970		‘Red’ Rudensky Gonif 86: We [...] passed around the strong Canadian hooch. [Ibid.] 104: There was enough hootch there to slop the world for ninety days.
1981		H. Gould Fort Apache, The Bronx 29: Leavin’ the hooch alone for a while, huh?
1998		P. Cornwell Point of Origin (1999) 37: That’s a hell of a lot of hooch for one guy.
2005		J. Stahl I, Fatty 70: Somewhere in my hooch-addled brain [etc.].
2014		(con. 1926) T. McCauley ‘For Whom No Bells Toll’ in ThugLit Mar. [ebook] ‘I hope you bastards are stocked up on hooch [...] because I’m in a drinking mood’.
2021		T. Pluck Boy from County Hell 280: [T]he Latin Kings [...] stole the hooch business from the HB.

3. any inferior alcoholic drink (esp. whisky) in Alaska and the Can. northwest.

1908		Sporting Times 11 July 1/4: He had a beautiful sosh on, but was bravely bellying up to the bar in a British Columbian town, blinkily regarding his half-finished glass of ‘hootch,’ and mentally calculating what would be the result if he succeeded in getting outside of it.
1927		R.S. Gold ‘Miscellaneous Notes’ in AS III:2 167: Hootch: Bad whiskey.
1936		R. Chandler ‘Goldfish’ in Red Wind (1946) 179: The garages was all full to the roof of Canadian hooch.
1949		R. Service ‘The Parson’s Son’ in Songs of a Sun Lover (1955) 13: A broken wreck with a craze for ‘hooch’, and never a cent to my name.
1988		M. Atwood Cat’s Eye (1989) 349: Hooch and eats are Jody’s words. We get Canadian wine in gallon jugs.

4. in attrib. use of sense 3.

1921

Broadway Brevities Dec 20: Why has Bennv F forgotten all his old objection to hootch parties?

5. (US drugs) cannabis.

1972		Eble Campus Sl. Oct. 3: hooch – marijuana.
1993		(con. 1969) N.L. Russell Suicide Charlie 75: Sergeant Miller was smoking hootch with some blond-haired blue-eyed American mama-san.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 12: Hooch — Marijuana.
2004		(con. 1960s-70s) T. Taylor Top Fellas 39/1: Long haired, hooch smoking, let-it-all-hang-out rock fans.