hooch

plural hooches · alternative hootch

1. CanadaUScountableinformaluncountableAn alcoholic beverage, especially an inferior or illicit one and especially liquor such as whisky.

   Bring on the free hooch!

   1997, Kevin Smith, Chasing Amy, spoken by Banky Edwards (Jason Lee)

   2 more examples

   he was so grief-stricken that he literally drowned his sorrow in “hootch-i-noo,” the native equivalent of whiskey. […] Had he not been so sad he would not have drunk the “hootch,” and if he had not drunk the hootch he would not have died: a perfectly reasonable and logical argument.

   c. 1910, O.M. Salisbury, chapter 3, in Quoth the raven: A little journey into the primitive, Seattle: Superior Publishing Company, published 1962, page 17

   Market traders have set up their stalls beside the ruins anyway: one lady, cheerfully presiding over slabs of salo, pork lard, proclaimed that her personal coping mechanism was going to be a plentiful supply of home distilled hooch or horilka.

   2026 September 26, Charlotte Higgins, Julia Kochetova, “Kyiv has become a frontline city - and winter is on the way”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

plural hooches · alternative hootch

1. Vietnam War-era military slangA thatched hut, CHU, or any simple dwelling.

   Burn the hooches.

   2022 December 6, Avatar: The Way of Water, spoken by Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang)

1. alternativeuncountableAlternative form of hoosh (“type of stew”).