Hooch

• The official death toll in the Bihar hooch tragedy reached 28.

Hooch

• Hooch is a term for cheap, poor quality alcohol made in crude settings.
• If prepared incorrectly, it can cause serious injury or even death.
• It is nearly impossible to tell whether hooch is fit to consume before actual consumption.

Hooch production

• It is made using fermentation and distillation.
• Makers heat water, yeast and sugar (often from fruit waste) to produce a fermented mixture ina large pot.
• Fermentation creates alcohol, but as more sugar is consumed by the yeast, it becomes inefficient and finally stops.
• Distillation separates ethanol (consum- able alcohol) from this mixture by precisely heating it to its boiling point.
• For hooch makers, the setup for this process often includes a large vat where the fermented mixture is boiled, a pipe that carries the alcoholic fumes, and another pot where these fumes condense.
• Multiple rounds of distillation strengthen the final product.

An inherent risk

• The fermented mixture contains not just ethanol but also highly toxic methanol.
• During distillation, both ethanol and methanol are concentrated.
• If done wrong. the end product can have a high concen- tration of methanol.
• Overheating the mixture also does not help as it produces a more watered down end-product, as water also evaporates and condenses in the collecting pot.
• Unlikecommercial distillers, hooch-makers have no temperature control, making distilla- tion inherently risky.

Adulteration and its risks

• To compensate for overboiling, adulterants are often added to increase hooch's potency.
• Some commonly used ones include organic waste, battery acid, and industry grade methanol, all of which are toxic.
• Adulterants make hooch cause blackouts, memory loss, and high drunkenness, even if low quantities are consumed.
• In extreme cases, when adulterants like methanol are present in high concentrations, the hooch can be deadly.

Effects of spurious liquor

• Methanol can cause impaired vision, high toxicity and metabolic acidosis.
• A condition in which the body produces excessive formic acid that the kidneys are unable to flush out.
• In India, alcohol poisoning is often treated with the intravenous administration of a mixture of ethanol and water.
• Ethanol inhibits methanol's conversion into toxins and helps in flushing it out of the body either naturally or through dialysis.