ˈrot-gut, ˈrotgut
[f. rot v. + gut n.]
1. An adulterated or unwholesome liquor; spec. bad small beer, or (in U.S.) inferior whiskey.
| 1633 Heywood Eng. Trav. iv. Wks. 1874 IV. 72 Let not a Teaster scape To be consum'd in rot-gut. 1666 G. Harvey Morb. Angl. xxviii. (1672) 76 They overwhelming their panch daily with a kind of flat Scarbier, or Rot-gut; we with a bitter dreggish small liquor. 1715 Addison Drummer v. Wks. 1830 II. 208 Sir George. Drink nothing but smallbeer for a fortnight ―. But. Smallbeer! Rot-gut! 1831 S. Lover Leg. 222 To the divil I pitch sitch rot-gut. 1867 P. Fitzgerald 75 Brooke St. II. 67 What is it to me..if you fill your cellars with all the ‘rotgut’ in the kingdom? 1892 Henley & Stevenson Deacon Brodie i. iv, What brings the man from stuff like this to rotgut and spittoons at Mother Clarke's. 1911 E. M. Clowes On Wallaby vi. 164 The cattle-men, shearers, and shepherds get their internal machinery completely ruined in time by the quantity of inferior boiled sugar and fruit that they consume, and which they have inelegantly christened ‘rot-gut’. 1923 C. E. Mulford Black Buttes xiv. 220 Yes, even a drink of rot-gut would 'a' bought you! 1939 Joyce Finnegans Wake (1964) 381 And suck up..whatever surplus rotgut, sorra much, was left by the lazy lousers of maltknights and beer-churls. 1946 Time 7 Oct. 10/2 For 50 years we have been hearing how the drought-smitten Jayhawkers were poisoning themselves on bootleg rotgut because we couldn't get decent liquor. 1952 E. O'Neill Moon for Misbegotten iv. 173 That isn't Phil's rotgut. That's real, honest-to-God bonded Bourbon. 1969 Private Eye 4 July 14/3 But don't drink that rotgut. Here warm your gizzard with a tot of rum from my flask. 1976 Times 8 July 16/4 It was being killed mercilessly by the whisky posts with their rotgut. |
2. attrib. or as adj. Of liquor: Unwholesome, deleterious, injurious to the system. Also transf. and fig.
| 1706 T. Baker Tunbridge Walks iii. i, Damn rotgut Rhenish: we'll have Mrs. Motion's health in a bumper of Barcelona. 1767 S. Paterson Anoth. Trav. II. 42 Their only drink was a cursed rot-gut stuff, which they called wine. 1830 Marryat King's Own xxxiv, The rotgut French wines had given him a pain in the bowels. 1871 Daily News 19 Jan., To take glass after glass of rotgut rum, schnapps, or arrack. 1877 H. Ruede Let. 24 Apr. in Sod-House Days (1937) 57 They have a brand called ‘Old Style’, some of Catlin's (St. Louis) cheap rotgut tobacco, and from that price up. 1927 L. Bromfield Good Woman xiii. 140 A glass filled many times with the rot-gut whisky that Hennessy sold. 1948 F. Blake Johnny Christmas i. 5 Not a man in that line but hated Santa Ana and his Mexicans, hated their talk, the way they killed, their rot-gut laughter. 1970 J. Howard Please Touch 6 Many kinds of wine: sweet, dry, nutty, fruity, insouciant, rotgut, presumptuous and noble. 1978 Sunday Times (Colour Suppl.) 18 June 42/3 Traders stack their boats with liquor, rotgut whisky and cachaca, cheap spirit. |
b. spec. (See quot.) U.S.
| 1888 Goode Amer. Fishes 432 Its flesh spoils very quickly after the fish is taken from the water, hence the name ‘Rot⁓gut Minnow’, applied to it in Alabama. |