The reason is very simple, because the human race is a “hard to show wisdom” race indeed!
As you know, alcohol is something that is always banned in prison . But inmates still find ways to “circumvent the law “, such as hiding alcohol from the outside, or even trying to make their own alcohol from ingredients and tools available in the cell.
That is why in the world there is a type of alcohol that is labeled as originating from prisons. This wine goes by many names, but the most commonly used is pruno . And to be honest, this wine is extremely easy to make, because the prisoners have to make use of what is available in the cell.
It only takes fruit, potatoes and sugar to make pruno.
Ingredients include fruit (can be apple, orange or grapefruit), sugar, yeast and water . You just need to mash the fruit, mix it with sugar and water, and then put it in a sealed bubble bag. The next step is to wrap it up in a towel or sock, and place it in a warm, dark place.
Prisoners often hide it under beds, in alcoves, trash cans, even in toilets. Also, the bathroom and laundry room are the best places to hide the pruno bag because if it is found it is simply thrown away and the owner is not in trouble.
After a few days, just add yeast and wait a few days to have wine. For prisoners, leaven may be present in the bread crumbs or the biscuits given at meals.
That’s it, going to prison is not a vacation where you ask for alcohol? Therefore, after being discovered, this type of alcohol led to the fact that fruit was banned in prison.
Pruno is of course not a fine wine, but according to the experience of those who have tried it, its taste is hardly called good. Some YouTubers who have tried pruno have different comments: some say it’s not bad, tastes like rice wine, but others say it smells like… the trash has been forgotten for a few days. Meanwhile, the pruno made in the video is inherently a much more “sanitized” version of the “original” pruno.
Pruno, of course, isn’t a great wine, but it’s fine to have alcohol in prison, and you can’t ask for much.
But something more important than taste is that pruno was once suspected to be the cause of botulism outbreaks in two California prisons in 2004 and 2005. As suggested by the CDC (US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) it is the potatoes used to make the pruno that are the root of the problem.
By 2012, another outbreak of botulism occurred among inmates in prisons in Arizona and Utah.