We prepared CuO nanorods by use of two kinds of wet chemical methods. The first method is to mix the NaOH aqueous solution and Cu(NO3)2 in ethanol, and then continue their reaction in autoclave. By varying the pH values of solutions, the reactive time, and the reactive temperature, we obtained the CuO nanorods with different lengths and widths. The second method is to throw the solid grains of NaOH into the Cu(NO3)2 aqueous solution directly and we obtained the CuO nanorods with high aspect ratio within two minutes. The nanorod's length is about 300 nm and the width is about 15 nm. This method has potential for mass production. Photoluminescence spectrum with 325 nm pumping reveals a transition at 736 nm that corresponds to the band gap energy of 1.68 eV. However, the Raman peak shifts to the higher frequencies for the fast fabricated sample is different from the previous research.