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Essential to hooch, a naturally occurring liquid, primarily? (7)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

ethanol

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'essential to hooch' is the definition.

'a naturally occurring liquid primarily?' is the wordplay.
'a naturally' becomes 'ethan' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'primarily?' suggests taking the first letters (I've seen 'primarily' mean this).
The initial letters of 'occurring liquid' is 'ol'.
'ethan'+'ol'='ETHANOL'

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for ethanol that I've seen before include "Form of alcohol" , "porter uses it" , "constituent for a dram?" , "volatile flammable substance" , "Ethyl alcohol" .)

I've seen this clue in The Everyman puzzle in The Observer.
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