It always amazes me what a dedicated drinker will drink. My cousin brewed this drink up one fall and called it Pukoo Juice. Pukoo is the name of a town on the Island of Molokai in the Hawaiian Islands. He also told some kind of a tale that it was invented by the Seabees in the South Pacific. That may be true but I am suspicious of the story. Further research however does put the ingredients into a drink called Pukoo that apparently originated in Hawaii. At any rate it is pretty potent when drunk. Because of its ingredients it would have to be classified as some kind of wine.

Since I was in on the whole process of making the stuff and this is what he did. First he got a five gallon pottery crock that he thoroughly cleaned and sterilized with boiling water. The ingredients were fresh tropical fruits pink and white grapefruits, oranges, lemons, limes, and pineapples and about 10 pounds a sugar along with a handful of raisins. He cut the fruit up into small pieces peels and all. He put down a layer of fruit then covered it was sugar and lightly tamped it down until he had filled the crock almost to the top. On top of this he threw in a handful of raisins. Then he covered the crock and allowed it to ferment. Fermentation and the aging process took about three months before it was ready to drink. You had to filter the contents of the crock in order to acquire the Pukoo Juice. Pukoo Juice makes an extremely potent drink as we can all attest after sampling it on a very cold New Year’s Eve.

I should imagine that the Seabees just allowed this to thoroughly ferment before drinking it because they were actually in combat conditions in the South Pacific during World War II. They were a very ingenious lot when it came to supplying themselves with something potable under those conditions.

This wasn’t the only thing they drank my cousin also taught me how to make a coconut bomb that was made from a coconut and sugar. They took the eyes out of a coconut; poured out the milk and drank it. Then they filled the coconut with sugar and plugged the holes back up, and set it out in the hot tropical sun. They kept turning the coconut every day until it gurgled at them when they tapped its side. Then they took the eyes back out the coconut and poured out the contents. This made a sweet drink that was completely clear and slightly oily and had a kick like Missouri Mule.

The interesting thing about a coconut bomb is that the colonists make something very similar that was made from a sugar pumpkin called pumpkin rum. In this case they would cut off the top of the pumpkin like they were making a Jack-O’-Lantern. After they scooped out the insides; they would fill the pumpkin with brown sugar until it was full then they put the top back on sealing it with wax. Several days of setting out in a hot autumn sun would liquefy the brown sugar and allow it to ferment. Once it was thoroughly fermented it was drinkable and the colonists called it pumpkin rum. It had a brownish look about it, and was very sweet from all the sugar.