forty-rod

English

Etymology

From forty +‎ rod, a measure of distance, suggesting whiskey so strong it can affect one from 200 meters away.

Noun

forty-rod (uncountable)

1. cheap, strong whiskey or similar alcoholic beverage
   • 1885, Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade)‎^[1], Chapter V:

     […] he got powerful thirsty and clumb out on to the porch-roof and slid down a stanchion and traded his new coat for a jug of forty-rod, and clumb back again and had a good old time

Adjective

forty-rod (not comparable)

1. (usually of whiskey) very strong, containing a high concentration of alcohol
   • 1887, William Hibbard, Rays of Reason: Or Religion Refuted, page 115:

     As a result of their laws in some of the states statistics furnish the facts that more “rot gut” whiskey is used than ever before, the milder and more harmless beverages having been in a measure embargoed by the law by reason of the fact that they cannot so easily be smuggled and handled as the concentrated “forty rod” whiskey.

   • 1974, Richard Bartlett, Nature’s Yellowstone, pages 151-152:

     Since it had been laid out so ostentatiously on paper in 1863 it had progressed to the sum total of “two ‘she-bangs’ which fulfill[ed] all requirements of the place by dispensing bacon, coffee, tea, sugar, and calico in limited quantities and forty-rod liquor in unlimited quantities.”