At night, pilots could enjoy the daily ounce-and-a-half ration of brandy authorized by Navy regulations. But it was rotgut, and enterprising pilots found better use for it hidden inside their pillows, where the steward’s mates would find it and be induced to perform a more thorough cleaning of the quarters. The squadron medical officer could be counted on to keep a secret stash of medicinal alcohol. Sweetened with iodine and burnished with caramel coloring, it could pass, after the third or fourth shot perhaps, for actual sour mash. The enlisted men distilled their own liquor from raisins and
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