subs. phr. (old).—Poor drink: generic; spec. bad beer or alcohol: also ROTTO (B. E., DYCHE, GROSE).
1666. GIDEON HARVEY, Morbus Anglicus; or, The Anatomy of Consumptions, ch. xxviii., p. 156. They overwhelming their panch daily with a kind of flat Scarbier, or ROTGUT; we with a bitter dreggish small liquor, that savours of little else than hops and muddy water.
1633. HEYWOOD, The English Traveller, iv. 5, 226 (Mermaid).
| Nay drown it all, let not a tester scape | |
| To be consumed in ROT-GUT. |
1789. G. PARKER, Life’s Painter, 40. That … is better than all the ROT-GUT wine that ever came from Popish grounds.
1796. WOLCOT (‘Peter Pindar’) [1830], 53.
| A poor old woman with diarrhœa, | |
| Brought on by slip-slop tea and ROT GUT beer, | |
| Went to Sangrado with a woeful face. |
1830. MARRYAT, The King’s Own, xxxiv. The master requested a glass of grog, as the ROT-GUT French wines had given him a pain in the bowels.
1856. T. HUGHES, Tom Brown’s School-days, I. vi. Drinking bad spirits and punch, and such ROT-GUT stuff.
1892. W. E. HENLEY and R. L. STEVENSON, Deacon Brodie, iv. 13. What brings the man from stuff like this to ROT-GUT and spittoons at Mother Clarke’s.
1895. Pall Mall Gazette, 19 Sept., 9, 1. I armed myself with a supply of the fieriest ROT-GUT … and set out to wish him good-bye.
