Jungle Juice!

Living in the Jungle

Living in the jungle was not like living in France or Italy.  Certain soldier basic interests did not exist such as beer halls or laundry facilities.  Making jungle juice was the answer to the lack of beer halls.

 1.Fermentation Vat.  Half of a 55 gallon oil drum is enough for a single batch,  Notice the sticks for stirring.  What is not shown is the cloth covering to keep out the insects that converge on anything fermenting. The insects do not affect the flavor but they are unattractive and may promote the fermentation of vinegar. The essential ingredients are sugar and water and then fruit, raisins, papayas, coconut juice and any fruit, canned or fresh, to supply the necessary enzymes, acid and yeast to initiate fermentation.  A bit of baker’s yeast is a big help.  In tropical climates ten days fermentation is enough before distillation.  

2. Boiler. A five gallon jerry can.  Looks like this is a gasoline jerry can with a screw top and a small vent for attaching the copper tube vapor line.

3. The source of heat appears to be a regular army stove  of the type used to boil water and coffee in 30 gallon garbage cans.

4. The overhead vapor line appears to be a piece of ¼ inch copper tubing.  This would have been difficult to obtain in New Guinea. After the 1897^th inherited a Japanese truck supply caravan the infantry captured on Route 2 from Dulag, Leyte an assortment of hardware was available.

5. Half of a 55 gallon oil drum with the copper line coiled inside makes an adequate condenser.  The water must be manually replace to keep it cool.  Note the water can over to the left for this purpose.

6. Spigot on end of copper coil protruding from side of condenser drum.

7. Coke bottle to receive juice from condenser.8.

8. First sample of “juice” hot from condenser.

The fermentation yield of alcohol from these primitive facilities was probably 8 to 9 percent (16 to 18 proof) .  Thus a five gallon batch would contain about 100 liquid ounces of 100 proof alcohol.  80% of this would come over in the first two gallons distilled to give a liquid 31 proof.  The first few ounces of alcohol distilled packed quite a wallop and contained various aldehydes and esters that promote blindness and other afflictions.  The “first run” two gallons needed redistilling to produce about 100 ounces ( about 3 quarts) of 80 proof alcohol after discarding the first few ounces containing the aldehydes.  This yield sounds high for these facilities.  Maybe you could produce two quarts of drinkable stuff from five gallons of mash.

The above equipment was often unattainable so we would settle for a simple fermentation.  The simplest was to drill a hole in a green coconut, stuff in sugar, raisons, papaya or canned fruit.  Plug and place under your cot.  When the plug blew out it was ready to drink. 

The best material for wine was canned pie cherries.  A couple of gallon cans of pie cherries in a water jerry can with sugar and water would produce drinkable wine, especially if was aged a month or more.  The only time our wine was permitted to age was during the confusion of the Leyte invasion.  We placed the jerry can in the tool box of the ditching machine and did not have access to the ditching machine for six weeks.