spruce beer
Also spruce-beer.
[Spruce n. The modern use is app. not due to, but rather the source of, the synonymous G. sprossenbier, f. sprosse shoot, sprout.]
† a. Beer from Prussia. Obs. b. A fermented beverage made with an extract from the leaves and branches of the spruce fir.
| c 1500 Colyn Blowbols Test. 331 in Hazl. E.P.P. I. 106 Spruce beer, and the beer of Hambur, Whyche makyth oft tymes men to stambur. 1591 Nashe Prognostication 11 Many shall haue more Spruce Beere in their bellies, then wit in their heads. 1690 Child Disc. Trade (1698) 77 Foreign liquors made of corn, commonly called Mum, Spruce-Beer, and Rosteker-Beer. 1706 Phillips (ed. Kersey), Spruce-Beer, a kind of Physical Drink, good for inward Bruises, &c. 1744 Berkeley Sec. Let. Tar-water §4 Spruce-beer made of molasses, and the black spruce-fir. 1766 W. Stork Acc. East-Florida 44 The spruce fir here is quite a different tree from that to the northward, but answers the same end for making the spruce beer. 1834 T. J. Graham Dom. Med. (ed. 6) 180 Spruce beer is a powerful diuretic and antiscorbutic, and is a wholesome beverage for the summer. 1893 Leland Mem. I. 13 Selling doughnuts, spruce-beer, and gingerbread. |