kill-the-beggar

kill +‎ the +‎ beggar

kill-the-beggar (uncountable)

1. (obsolete, Ireland, slang) Cheap and poor-quality whiskey.
   • 1834 June 18, Buckingham, James Silk, “Minutes of Evidence, Wednesday, the Eighteenth Day of June, 1834”, in Evidence on Drunkenness, London: British and Foreign Temperance Society, published 1834, page 98:

     In your examination of Monday, you spoke of kill-the-beggar-whiskey; has any analysis been made of that whiskey?

   • 1835, Hood, Thomas, “Ode to J. S. Buckingham, Esq. M.P.”, in The Comic Annual, pages 135–136:

     To men of common gumption, / Hot strange, besides, must seem / At this time any scheme / To put a check upon potheen's consumption, / When all are calling for Irish Poor Laws! / Instead of framing more laws, / To pauperism if you'd give a pegger, / Don't check, but patronise their "Kill-the-Beggar!" / If Pat is apt to go in Irish Linen, / (Buttoning his coat, with nothing but his skin in) / Would any Christian man -- that's quite himself, / His wits not floor'd, or laid upon the shelf --, While blaming Pat for raggedness, poor boy, / Would deprive him of his "Corduroy!"

   • 2016, Martin, Kevin, “Special Exemptions”, in Have Ye No Homes to Go To?: The History of the Irish Pub, Collins Press, →ISBN:

     The quality of the liquor served in the spirit grocers was poor and often adulterated, said [John] Edgar. He gave an example of a whiskey known as 'kill the beggar' in Belfast because 'it first makes the beggar and then kills the beggar'. There was an even worse concoction called 'corduroy', so named because it gave a rough feeling on the tongue and palate.

• corduroy

• Farmer, John Stephen (1896) Slang and Its Analogues‎, volume 4, page 107