squirrel whiskey
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.43 in modern English
37
Scrabble Score
15
Letters
2
Syllables
11
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
High-proof, low-quality whiskey, generally produced illegally.
Canadian usage; American usage; Obsolete; Slang; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "[…] he slept of[f] his load of squirrel whiskey and went home forgetting a duty for which he was discharged."
- "He left the yard and went down past the station, cutting across the tracks north of the water-tower, intending to drink squirrel whiskey in Luke Horton’s flour and feed store at the end of Main Street."
- "There was no restraint as to the quality of liquor they sold, whether squirrel whiskey or moonshine, just so long as it provided the patrons with a kick."
- "I picked up a bottle of whiskey, a fine old Dundee, though it could have been a Chicago-saloon, two-bits-a-shot, squirrel whiskey for all either of us cared at that moment."
Etymology
According to a widely repeated jocular explanation, “it [makes] those who [drink] it inclined to climb a tree,”; but the term is more plausibly explained by the fact that “squirrels were often drowned in the open-air mash-tubs used by moonshiners” and/or that the liquor was aged “by tying the keg in a tall pine tree”.