Pruno: an alcoholic beverage first produced by inmates of the California penal system. Pruno is made from oranges, sugar, and bread that ferments for a period of time ranging from three to seven days.

Brief Introduction

Before we begin this sophomoric journey of alcoholic stupidity, please take a moment to read this excerpt from an email my roommate John's mother wrote to him after hearing about our plan for home-brewed prison wine:

"I'm concerned not only with your level of drinking, but now also with the substances you are consuming. Please be careful, life is too precious to waste on a prison booze prank."

As it turns out, not only is John's mother concerned for his well-being, but she also happens to be a high school chemistry teacher. She went on to inform us that if certain chemical reactions in our Pruno preparation process were erroneously botched, we might go blind or possibly die from the resulting level of methanol.

Throwing caution to the wind, we dismissed this grim warning as nothing more than motherly anxiety and scientific witchcraft. I mean honestly, who ever heard of someone going blind from drinking booze?

Prep Work and the Wait Game.

I'll spare you a play-by-play instructional on how we went about making our pruno concoctions, because, to be honest -- it's not all that interesting. Instead, here's brief summation:

Taste Testing (Attempting to Get Drunk without Puking).

Pruno Batch #1: Surprisingly, the first batch of Pruno didn’t kill us on the spot. In fact, it wasn’t nearly as bad as we were expecting – sort of like orange juice that had gone bad several weeks prior, perhaps mixed with a hint of Mad Dog 20/20. It should be noted that Batch #1 had a very distinct sugary aftertaste, which was in large part thanks to the heaping handful of peach rings that John and I had added.

Now I know what you might be thinking, “But Noah, they don’t have peach-rings in prison. That’s cheating.” You know what? I make my own rules. Peach rings, end of fucking story.

Don’t get me wrong, even with this candy addition it still tasted like something I’d filtered out of my garbage disposal. It sort of reminded me of my ex-girlfriend before her bi-monthly douching. Except for the fact she used a minty menthol flavor, not peach. Sigh, peach would’ve been much nicer. Alas, I’m getting sidetracked…

Aside from a seemingly unpleasant taste, the only real drawback to Batch #1 was the soupy consistency of the liquid. It was like trying to down a really thick milkshake -- and unlike the popular urban jig, this milkshake brought no boys to the yard.

All in all, Batch #1 was bearable enough to drink in healthy amounts – no vomiting, no loss of vision, no death.

“Drop the Soap” Prison Rating: 2 out of 5 Anal-Raping.     -Some minor discomfort at first, but with enough exposure, you get used to it.

Pruno Batch #2: Holy. Fucking. Shit.

This crap was absolutely horrid. You may not believe me, but I’m having a hard time thinking of descriptive words to fully express the foulness that was Pruno Batch #2 -- honestly, the accompanying memory of drinking that rancid sewage makes me want to puke all over my keyboard.

Picture if you will, a rotten compost heap of tropical fruits consumed by maggots, mixed with the poop of an Indian toddler (dots, not feathers) who’d just chowed down on an entire bowl of curry. Awful, right? Oh wait, there’s more.

Now take that putrid stench, double it, add an awful chemical tang that literally burns your nostrils, and sprinkle just a pinch of Grandma’s yeast infection for good measure.

Voilà! You now have our scrumptiously delicious batch of Pruno #2.

You can imagine that downing this concoction was no easy task, as each of us were literally gagging after every swallow of this decaying orange bukkake. We quickly realized that sipping and savoring this mixture was not the best course of action – instead we opted for the more fratalicious approach: chugging.

I won’t go into detail. Just watch the video footage. Daddy hurts.

“Drop the Soap” Prison Rating: 5 out of 5 Anal-Raping.     -Double-penetration, cavity-spelunking, hershey-hammerin’… utter domination. Ouch.