[joea]

Raisin jack:

http://www.ussvance.com/Vance/htm/rajack.htm

Meanwhile, back on the Vance: (During Barrier Patrol) We had a Second Class Engineman, named McCaffrey, who was brewing his own *Private Reserve* Raisin Jack in the Forward Engineroom, (#1 Engineroom) (Yes, Brian's very same engineroom). Anyway, McCaffery kept bragging to everyone that his brew would be ready for drinking in about one week. We all knew in advance that he wasn't going to share any of his Raisin jack, so we decided to do the following: We drilled holes through the top of the locked heavy metal spare parts box that he had his brew in. Then we punched holes into the tops of his brew containers, (glass gallon syrup jugs) stuck rubber tubing into the containers and took turns sucking them all dry!. Then we plugged the drilled holes with electrician's Temp-Seal and repainted the box covers machinery grey. When the long awaited day came when McCaffery went down to sample his Raisin Jack, all he found was a couple of handfuls of moldy raisins in each bottle! He was so angry that he stormed into the wardroom with one of those empty one gallon containers as evidence at about 1730 hours and voiced his complaint to the Captain, X.O., and Engineering Officer that "Some Dirty Bastards had drank all of his Raisin Jack!" Needless to say, the Skipper was kinda upset and ordered the Engineering Officer to make an inspection of all engineering spaces looking for more home brew!

http://www.de220.com/Machinery/machinery.htm

One more piece of trivia: Alcohol is not permitted on USN vessels, so sailors used to ferment their own. Unfortunately for them, the smell released during fermentation was easily recognized and their secret "stash" was usually discovered by the officers. On a small ship it was especially hard to hide their fermenting "raisin jack." One crewman told me he successfully made hundreds of gallons of raisin jack in the forced air intakes during his six-year hitch. He correctly figured the forced air blowers sucked all the smell into the boiler and burned it. He never got caught.