Essential to hooch, a naturally occurring liquid, primarily? (7)
I believe the answer is:
ethanol
'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" .)