Also spruce-beer. [SPRUCE sb. 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.
