A “hooch hound,” a dog trained to sniff out liquor during Prohibition, 1922
1 January 2024
Hooch, or in earlier usage hoochinoo, is a slang term for liquor, especially of cheap, poor quality, or an illegal nature. The term is an anglicization of the name of the Xutsnoowú tribe, a Tlingit people who traditionally reside in the area around Angoon, Alaska. Early uses of hooch are in the context of liquor brewed by the Xutsnoowú. The name of the liquor is unrelated to hooch (hut, dwelling) or hootchy-kootchy, which have very different origins.
The earliest reference to the liquor that I have found is in an article in San Francisco’s Daily Evening Bulletin with a dateline of 23 December 1874, some seven years after the United States purchased Alaska from Russia:
About two weeks ago, in a drunken row, a Chilcat Indian sliced a Sitka warrior till he sickened “unto death.” Mr. Chilcat saw fit to immediately start on a voyage of discovery anywhere away from the Sitka village, while the sliced warrior was duly cremated a few days after; and I must say that, to judge by the flame that leaped “higher and higher,” he must have been saturated with more than the usual quantity of seal oil. The flame, in a solid column, shot upward as high as ten feet into the air, while the lamenting but tipsy relatives stood around, and chanted the dirge and drank the fiery hoochenoo, till, overcome by grief and liquor, they had to be led to their homes by the shaman (the medicine man), who did not succeed in saving his patient.
A few months later, on 20 March 1875, we see this in San Francisco’s Weekly Alta California:
Orders from Department Headquarters forbid further importation into the Territory of liquors for sale. The Indians are therefore in their glory, for their home-brew, yclept “Hoochinoo,” is now in brisk demand and rising in price.
The earliest use of the clipped form hooch that I’m aware of is in Hayne’s and Taylor’s 1897 The Pioneers of the Klondyke, although I’m sure earlier instances are out there to be found. The passage is describing the situation during the winter of 1895–96, prior to gold being discovered in the Klondike:
Drinks and cigars in these saloons cost four “bits” (50 cents, or about 2s. apiece. As the supply of whisky was very limited, and the throats down which it was poured were innumerable, it was found necessary to create some sort of a supply to meet the demand. This concoction was known as “hooch”; and disgusting as it is, it is doubtful if it much more poisonous than the whisky itself. This latter goes by the name of "Forty rod whisky”—a facetious allusion to its supposed power of killing at that distance!
Sources:
“Alaska.” Weekly Alta California (San Francisco), 20 March 1875, 1/3. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Green’s Dictionary of Slang, n.d., s.v. hooch, n.1.
Hayne, M. H. E. and W. West Taylor. The Pioneers of the Klondyke. London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1897, 90–81. HathiTrust Digital Library.
“Matters in Alaska” (23 December 1874). Daily Evening Bulletin (San Francisco), 13 January 1875. 3/5. Gale Primary Sources: Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. hooch, n., Hoochinoo, n.
Photo credit: Unknown photographer, 1922. Library of Congress. Public domain image.