[Fr.; short for chasse-café, lit. ‘chase-coffee, coffee-chaser,’ f. chasse-r to CHASE, drive away. (Now called in Fr. pousse-café.)] A draught or potion of some spirituous liquor, taken ostensibly to remove the taste of coffee, tobacco, or the like. The full Chasse-café is now less used.
1800. Mar. Edgeworth, Belinda, iii. (1820), I. 58. She ordered coffee, and afterward chasse-café.
1841. L. Hunt, Seer (1864), 25. For the digester itself is digested by a liqueur … called a chasse-café (coffee-chaser).
1857. G. A. Lawrence, Guy Livingstone, vii. So one glass of cognac neat, as a chasse (to more things than good claret).
1866. Sala, Barbary, xv. 298. Tourists … who breakfast in the Valley are in the habit of … ‘potting’ the monkeys by way of a chasse-café.
1871. M. Collins, Mrq. & Merch., I. vi. 205. The coffee and chasse followed.
1887. Pall Mall Gaz., 7 Feb., 4/2. Then the post-prandial cigar, with a chasse of whisky, a Sunday siesta, and to work again.
So ǁ Chassé, pa. pple. [Fr.] Treated, or having the taste disguised, with a chasse.
1839. Lever, H. Lorrequer, vi. 53 (Hoppe). Tea or coffee? there’s the rum if you like it ‘chassé.’
