DCHP-1 Online

hootch [< hootchino, q.v.] Slang

• 1 n. Yukon a kind of home brew. See hootchino (def. 1) 1937 quote.

  See also: hootchinoo  

  • 1897  The manufacture of "hooch," which is undertaken by the saloon-keepers themselves, is weirdly horrible.
  • 1898  Her parkee, made of Caribou, it is a lovely fit./ And she's all right from muck-a-luck unto her dainty mit./ This lovely Klooch is fond of Hooch, and makes it very well.
  • 1913  Hootch [is] the name given a brand of whisky distilled from the fermentation of flour and molasses.
  • 1958  Hootch, like everything else, was paid for in gold dust.
  • 1966  Tappen Adney, the Maritimer who was sent to cover the Klondike gold rush by Harper's Illustrated Weekly, reported on that most native of all Canadian drinks, Yukon "hootch," as it was manufactured in 1897-98. . . .

• 2 n. any alcoholic drink, especially inferior whisky.

  • 1910  I can't hold my hootch so well as I could a few summers ago. . . .
  • 1917  "I ducks my nut out o' there like a bat outer hell and connects up with a bunch of rough-necks that had some hooch and we puts a touch of real colour into the old town."
  • 1936  I guess they had bummed some money some place and invested it in hootch.
  • 1964  The least the authorities could do when they make a raid would be to pack the confiscated hootch and ship to some underprivileged country.