HOOCH

[David Lewis]

I found this recently:
Pierce, Richard A., "Alaskan Shipping, 1867-1878: Arrivals and Departures
at the port of Sitka," materials for the study of Alaskan History no.1, The
Limestone Press, Kingston, Ontario.

pages unnumbered, #6-7 from title page,
"Intoxicating liquors were banned under United States statutes relating to
"Indian Country," but no adequate provision was made for enforcements of
the law. In the southern archipelago  a flock of schooners flitted among
the passages engaged in contraband trade.  ... From nearby British
territory were smuggled large quantities of liquor and other goods. The
collectors at Sitka complained to superiors that the Hudson's Bay Company
steamship Otter traded constantly in the islands without reporting. A
villainous concoction called "hooch," distilled locally, added to the
demoralizing trade in spirits.
	In the north, other schooners supplied liquor to the Eskimos, so
disrupting the native way of life that some villages were later wiped out
by starvation.  The cutters of the U.S. Revenue Service tried to curb this
traffic, but were too few and usually too slow to catch more than a few of
the culprits. The smugglers boasted openly of their exploits. Many vessels
called at Sitka cited false destinations. Others never went near Sitka at
all; leaving San Francisco for Honolulu, they would there load up with
cheap liquor of Hawaiian or European manufacture, clear early in the
season, and head north. In Bering Strait they would trade with natives on
both the Siberian and Alaskan shores, ever ready to cross over to the
unpatrolled Siberian side if a revenue cutter appeared. "

In reference to previous discussions of the origin of the word Hooch in
Chinook Jargon, it appears to be quite probably. By this ethnography, hooch
referred to a native liquor product, of Canadian First Nations, sold
illegally to native communities on U.S. soil.

David