AS THE saying goes, if you've done the crime you should do the time. But increasingly those doing the time are also making their own wine.

This fine wine of felons is produced with great care and tenderness in the Barwon, Long Bay and Silverwater growing regions.

It’s full of fruit but has never been near a grape and it’s true blue Aussie ingredient to give it that je ne sais quoi? Thick, black, sticky Vegemite.

It could probably be labelled ‘Vin de Supermax’, but is actually known by the rather less luxurious sounding name of “pruno”.

It’s taste is something to behold. Less heady back notes of citrus and wood, and more a “vile” concoction of “vomit” and “bile”.

But some lags, in their quest for boot leg liquor, may be doing more than just terrifying their tastebuds — they’re running the risk of contracting botulism. If prepared incorrectly it could even explode.

CRAFT BREWING

Jailhouse hooch, brewed in the dankest corners of cells, has become such a problem that some prisons in NSW have banned Vegemite and cordial, another key ingredient in the corrective services concoction.

Last year, inmates brewed up at least 8604 litres of the wine of crime, enough to fill a dozen 20-litre kegs in each of the NSW’s jails, reported the Daily Telegraph.

“Craft brewing shouldn’t be part of the prisoner rehabilitation program,” Opposition leader Luke Foley said.

Pruno has a long and international vintage having cropped up in prisons around the world.

It’s key ingredient is fruit, such as oranges, which are left to ferment with a little water, sugar and bread, ketchup, or even Vegemite, to kick start the yeast producing enzymes into action.

You heard that right, oranges and Vegemite. Although, following the choc shock that was Cadbury Dairy Milk with Vegemite, it seems quite a reasonable combination.

‘SMELLS LIKE VOMIT, TOO’

The brew is ideal for prisoners, hell bent on having a bender, because it can be made with a minimum of ingredients with little more than a carrier bag, a towel or a pair of socks, and some hot water.

The website The Black Table said the prison pinot, “looks almost exactly like vomit. Oddly it smells like vomit, too.”

“The only drawback pruno has, aside from its unappealing tannish-orange colour, the white flecks of mould floating on the top and the smell you can’t wash off, is its taste,” it continued.

“For lack of a better metaphor, pruno tastes like a bile flavoured wine cooler.”

In fact, it’s flavour is “so putrid”, even hardened prisoners “gulp it down while holding their noses”.

There is another drawback — food poisoning.

In 2006, eight prisoners in a Utah used a rotten baked potato in their pruno recipe. It was a not a good move with the group of inebriated crims coming down with botulism and having to be hospitalised. Things got so bad, three had to be put on ventilators.

EARWAX AND GLUE

In 2004, the American Homebrewers Association’s national conference reportedly held an informal pruno competition.

The organisation’s director Gary Glass told the Orange County Register he was, “very thankful that I did not judge that competition. We generally try to focus on helping brewers make beer that tastes good”.

One of the most famous pruno recipes is from Jarvis Masters, a death-row inmate at California’s notorious St Quentin prison.

His 2013 poem, ‘Recipe For Prison Pruno’, interlaced the method of making the brew with the sentence handed down to him. The work won a writing award, possibly the only gong pruno has ever achieved.

If you want a break from $2 chardy or cask dregs, you can easily make prison wine at home:

1. Take a whole bunch or oranges, peel and cut into segments. Place into zippable plastic bag.

2. Add canned fruit and all the juices, lots of sugar and a touch of ketchup.

3. Add bread, or a dollop of Vegemite, to help kick start the yeast.

4. Pound the contents of the plastic bag into submission.

5. Place in warm water, if you’re a fan of MasterChef this is known as a sous vide. Remove, warp in a warm towel, or thick socks, and leave.

6. Repeat step 5 each day for a week but ensure you let the gas out or the bag could explode.

7. A week later, open bag and strain the contents. The remaining liquid is pruno.

On website Thrillist, Andy Kryza described the taste as, “brushing your teeth, slamming a glass of grapefruit juice, throwing it all up, then drinking it again.

“Maybe add earwax and a little glue.”

But perhaps we should leave the last word on pruno to Masters whose prison cell poem ends simply, “May God have mercy on your soul.”