Any cheap spirituous drink. Scotch.
1821. What champaigne is to homely black strap, are we when compared with our worthy predecessor.—Blackwood’s Mag., x. 105/1 (Aug.). (N.E.D.)
1828. This is the baby-drink, call’d black-strap and molasses, for the boys.—‘The Yankee,’ p. 227.
1830. The mate was compounding a large tin pot of hot ‘blackstrap,’ when a huge monster of an old wig bolted in among us without ceremony.—N. Ames, ‘A Mariner’s Sketches,’ p. 151.
1830. A somewhat “lengthy” application to the tin pot of hot blackstrap.—Id., p. 156.
1836. This is a temperance town, or the proposed stake would probably have been flip or blackstrap.—Boston Pearl, Feb. 13.
