We were talking the other day and I\u2019d remarked that something Claire had made was really good. She said that all recipes that have booze in them are good. \u201cBooze\u201d is a funny word \u2014 how\u2019d we come to refer to alcoholic beverages as booze?<\/p>\n
A number of sources I discovered credited the origin of the term to E.C. Booz, who was a distiller in the United States in the 19th century. I\u2019m pretty sure those sources are wrong because the term was used long before Mr. Booz became a distiller. The first references of the word booze, meaning \u201calcoholic drink,\u201d seems to have appeared in the English language around the 14th century. At that time, the word was \u201cbouse.\u201d The current spelling didn\u2019t appear until about the 17th century \u2014 still long before E.C. Booz and his distillery.<\/p>\n
Booze isn\u2019t the only term used to describe some kind of alcoholic beverage \u2014 I\u2019ve heard the various beverages referred to as hooch, moonshine, vino, draft, suds, liquid courage, redneck wine and of course native Americans used the term fire water.<\/p>\n
Whatever you call it, it\u2019s been around (and popular) for a long time\u2026. I think Benjamin Franklin summed up our relationship with drinking when he said, \u201cIn wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria.\u201d
\n\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We were talking the other day and I\u2019d remarked that something Claire had made was really good. She said that all recipes that have booze in them are good. \u201cBooze\u201d is a funny word \u2014 how\u2019d we come to refer … Continue reading