slang or colloq. [Origin unknown. Cf. SWITCHEL.] A name for various compounded intoxicating drinks; sometimes vaguely used for intoxicating drink in general.
1813. Col. Hawker, Diary (1893), I. 68. The boys … finished the evening with some prime grub, swizzle, and singing.
1843. Le Fevre, Life Trav. Phys., III. III. i. 86. A glass of swizzle, the most salubrious beverage in hot weather.
1848. Alb. Smith, Chr. Tadpole, xlv. 394. ‘What sort of swizzle do you keep here?’ ‘Swizzle, sir?—yes, sir,’ answered the waiter, not exactly knowing what to reply. ‘Drink, I mean,’ the other continued; ‘lush!—will that do?’
1879. Boddam-Whetham, Roraima & Brit. Guiana, xii. 129. A certain institution of Demerara known as ‘swizzles.’… The exact recipe for a swizzle I cannot give.
1899. C. H. Robinson, in World Wide Mag., III. July, 385/2. After partaking of the inevitable brandy cocktail or ‘swizzle’ as it is called in the West Indies.
b. Comb.: swizzle-stick, a stick used for stirring drink into a froth.
1874. J. Amphlett, in Morning Post, 9 Feb., 3/1. A swizzle-stick, consisting of a long stem with four or five short prongs sticking out from it at the bottom.
1885. Lady Brassey, The Trades, 152. I mean … to take home some ‘swizzle-sticks.’ They are cut from some kind of creeper, close to a joint, where four or five shoots branch out at right angles, so as to produce a star-like circle.
