or cream, lace, article, subs. phr. (common).—Brandy. [The custom of taking of brandy with tea and coffee was originally French.—Whence French Cream. LACED TEA = tea dashed with spirits.]
1815. SCOTT, Guy Mannering, ch. ix. ‘Get out the gallon punch-bowl, and plenty of lemons. I’ll stand for the FRENCH ARTICLE by the time I come back, and we’ll drink the young Laird’s health.’
1821. P. EGAN, Real Life in London, i., p. 608. Not forgetting blue ruin and FRENCH LACE.
ENGLISH SYNONYMS.—Ball-of-fire; bingo; cold tea; cold nantz; red ribbon.
FRENCH SYNONYMS.—Le parfait amour du chiffonnier (i.e., ragman’s happiness = coarse brandy); le trois-six (popular: = ROT-GUT); fil-en-quatre, fil-en-trois, fil-en-six (specifically, old brandy, but applied to spirits generally); le dur (= a drop of hard: common); le raide (popular = a drop of stiff): le chenique or chnic (popular:); le rude (popular: = a drop of rough, i.e., coarse brandy); l’eau d’affe (thieves’); le pissat d’âne (popular: = donkey’s piss; sometimes applied to bad beer, which is likewise called pissat de vache); l’avoine (military = hay, as who should say ‘a nose bag’); le blanc (popular = brandy or white wine); le possédé (thieves’: BINGO); le raspail (popular:); le cric (popular: also crik, crique, or cricque = rough brandy:); le schnaps (popular); le schnick (common: = bad brandy); le camphre (popular: = camphor; applied to the coarsest spirit); le sacré-chien or sacré-chien tout pur (common: = the vilest sold); casse-poitrine (common: = brandy heightened with pepper; cf., ROT-GUT); le jaune (rag-pickers’: = a drop of yellow); tord-boyaux (popular = twist-gut); la consolation (popular = a drop of comfort); requiqui (workmen’s); eau de mort (common: = death-water); le Tripoli (rank brandy); casse-gueule (= ‘kill the-carter’; applied to all kinds of spirits).
