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Alcoholic drinks from United States prisons

Pruno / hooch (prison wine)

Pruno is an illicit wine made in prisons from fruit, sugar and water fermented for several days in sealed plastic bags or jars. It matters to public health because batches that included potatoes have caused botulism outbreaks in US prisons.

Fully documentedAlcoholic drinks2 days – 8 daysFamily: Kilju (Finnish sugar wine)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedNo recipe; made from whatever food is available. The amounts in outbreak reports were not known.
Fruit, fresh or canned[cdc2012]
Sugar, often from powdered drink mix[cdc2012]
Water[cdc2012]
Sometimes potatoes, jelly, ketchup, breadPotatoes were in the batches linked to botulism[cdc2012][marlow2021]
Starterother: the mashed base ingredients, which inmates call the starter or kicker, kept and reused for later batches

Total time across the recorded steps: 2 days – 8 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: Fruit, sugar and water go into a plastic bag

Step 1 of 4
Combine fruit, sugar and water in a bag
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Inmates mash the ingredients together in a trash bag, jar or water bottle. A potato kept for weeks at room temperature is the ingredient linked to botulism in Utah. Output: sweet fruit mash.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Pruno is an illicit wine made in prisons from fruit, sugar and water fermented for several days in sealed plastic bags or jars. It matters to public health because batches that included potatoes have caused botulism outbreaks in US prisons. Made in 4 steps over 2 days – 8 days. The longest step, ferment sealed for several days, takes 2–8 days (Adams L.E. et al. 2015).

Key numbers
Main step2–8 daysReported[adams2015][yasmin2015]Ferment sealed for several days

What makes this one different

Pruno is a fruit-and-sugar ferment made in sealed bags from whatever food is at hand. Adding root vegetables such as potato can bring in botulinum spores.

Related ferments

Made the pruno / hooch way

Other pruno / hooch kinds

Made the same way, each with what its own sources record.

Maria-louca (Brazilian prison spirit)maria-louca

Alcoholic drinks from Brazilian prisons

Maria-louca is distilled after fermenting, where pruno and other prison wines are drunk as the fermented wash.

Sources: Wikipedia (pt); Blumenthal P. et al. 2021

Safety

This entry describes a hazard, not a method to follow. Botulinum toxin forms in airless, low-salt, low-acid, low-sugar conditions at room temperature. CDC investigators found that pruno with a potato added can give these conditions. Potatoes and other root vegetables can carry spores from soil; in the Utah outbreak the potato had been kept for weeks at room temperature. Botulism outbreaks from pruno have been reported in California, Utah, Arizona and Mississippi prisons.

Hazards the sources name: Clostridium botulinum (spores from potatoes and other root vegetables).

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

CDC says two earlier pruno-linked botulism outbreaks hit one and two inmates. In Utah, eight inmates fell ill with onset on 30 September to 4 October 2011, the largest pruno outbreak known then, linked to a baked potato kept for weeks. In Arizona two outbreaks (12 cases) came in July to November 2012 in one prison, the second with eight men who shared one batch made with potatoes. In 2016 a federal prison in Mississippi had a botulism outbreak, with 31 inmates drinking contaminated hooch.

Temperature, salt and pH
The sources we found give no temperature, salt or pH figure for any of its steps.
  1. [cdc2012] Thurston D. et al. 2012, Botulism from drinking prison-made illicit alcohol - Utah 2011, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 61(39), US Centers for Disease Control and Preventiongov
  2. [marlow2021] Marlow M., Edwards L., McCrickard L. et al. 2021, Mild botulism from illicitly brewed alcohol in a large prison outbreak in Mississippi, Frontiers in Public Health 9:716615paper
  3. [adams2015] Adams L.E. et al. 2015, Alcohol production, prevention strategies, and inmate knowledge about the risk for botulism from pruno consumption in a correctional facility - Arizona, 2013, Journal of Correctional Health Care 21(4):335-342, PMC5549268paper
  4. [yasmin2015] Yasmin S. et al. 2015, Outbreak of botulism after consumption of illicit prison-brewed alcohol in a maximum security prison - Arizona, 2012, Journal of Correctional Health Care 21(4):327-334, PMC7182035paper