Jailhouse Cooking: Prison wine

Pruno, prison wine

Just in time for the holidays is Crime Library’s take on prison wine, aka, pruno, hooch, or spud juice. Follow this classic recipe and in just nine days you can have an alcoholic concoction so vile that to call it “bad” would be an immeasurable understatement. In its favor is the fact that, if you can suppress your gag reflex, it will get you drunk.

The recipe here is taken from the poem of California death row inmate Jarvis Masters (read in full below). This recipe relies on yeast that occurs naturally in fruit. Some recipes call for potato skin or moldy or other bread to supply the yeast. Since that can give you botulism, the safest bet is to substitute a packet of yeast if you think your recipe requires it. For a festive twist, use champagne yeast for a unique prison bubbly.

The only measure of a successfully fermented batch of prison wine is that it gets you drunk and does not land you in the infirmary or the ER. Helpfully, at TheSneeze.com, Steve, Don’t Eat It! Vol. 8 describe first smelling red pruno, “Wine tasters refer to a wine’s aroma as its “nose.” This wine’s nose was a rectum. If this wasn’t wine, I had somehow stumbled upon the recipe for Prison Stink Bombs. Forget about drinking it, I was afraid of getting it on me.”

As far as actually drinking it, Nick Plumber of Drunkard.com said that it took suppressing “hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution and instinct to get down the first swallow.” He concluded that, “To put it bluntly, classic pruno tastes like a bottle of Thunderbird filtered through a dumpster full of rotted garbage. Also, a stray dog laps it up from the alley floor and vomits it into a dirty hubcap.” Andy Kryza of Thrillist.com describes pruno as, “Imagine brushing your teeth, slamming a glass of grapefruit juice, throwing it all up, then drinking it again, and you’re close to the flavor profile of this concoction. Maybe add earwax and a little glue.” He concludes, “But hey, it’s booze. And it beats the hell out of spending a week in solitary with just water and spork-related fever dreams.”

Ingredients:
1 large, sealable bag (Ziploc or a heavy-duty garbage bag with rubber bands)
10 peeled oranges
1 bowl (8 oz.) of fruit cocktail
50 sugar cubes, or equivalent of granulated white sugar
6 tsp. ketchup
16 oz. tap water

You will also need:
Sink, hot running water and three towels.

Day 1
Squeeze the oranges and the fruit cocktail into the bag and put the leftover orange pulp and fruit in the bag, seal it tightly. The mash should be a pasty pulp. Continue gently squeezing the mash through the bag with your fingers until it reaches the desired consistency.

Add 16 ounces of tap water and reseal bag.

Place the bag in the sink and run the bag under hot water for 15 minutes, then wrap it in the three towels to hold in the heat and start the fermentation process. Let it sit undisturbed for 48 hours.

Day 3
Unwrap the towels, open the bag and add the sugar and ketchup.  Reseal the bag and wait for the sugar to dissolve. Knead the pulp through the bag to blend well. Run the bag under under hot water in the sink for 30 minutes, re-wrap in towels and leave undisturbed for 72 hours, except for minor burping of the bag to keep it from popping.

Day 6, 7 and 8
Each day remove the towels, run the bag under hot water in the sink for 15 minutes, re-wrap and leave undisturbed.

Day 9
Unwrap the bag and open it. Skim off the fruit with a spoon, pour into 18 oz. cups and drink.

You may also strain the liquid through a preferably clean sock into 18 oz. cups, and allow the contents to settle before drinking.

Jarvis Masters’ recipe for prison pruno
Take ten peeled oranges,
Jarvis Masters, it is the judgment and sentence of this court,
one 8 oz. bowl of fruit cocktail,
that the charged information was true,
squeeze the fruit into a small plastic bag,
and the jury having previously, on said date,
and put the juice along with the mash inside,
found that the penalty shall be death,
add 16 oz. of water and seal the bag tightly.
and this Court having, on August 20, 1991,
Place the bag into your sink,
denied your motion for a new trial,
and heat it with hot running water for 15 minutes.
it is the order of this Court that you suffer death,
wrap towels around the bag to keep it warm for fermentation.
said penalty to be inflicted within the walls of San Quentin,
Stash the bag in your cell undisturbed for 48 hours.
at which place you shall be put to death,
When the time has elapsed,
in the manner prescribed by law,
add 40 to 60 cubes of white sugar,
the date later to be fixed by the Court in warrant of execution.
six teaspoons of ketchup,
You are remanded to the custody of the warden of San Quentin,
then heat again for 30 minutes,
to be held by him pending final
secure the bag as done before,
determination of your appeal.
then stash the bag undisturbed again for 72 hours.
It is so ordered.
Reheat daily for 15 minutes.
In witness whereof,
After 72 hours,
I have hereon set my hand as Judge of this Superior Court,
with a spoon, skim off the mash,
and I have caused the seal of this Court to be affixed thereto.
pour the remaining portion into two 18 oz. cups.
May God have mercy on your soul.

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