BourbonEnthusiast.com

The other day at Four Roses Al Young mentioned the fact that the term "Mind your Ps and Qs" comes from the days when the coach stopped at the tavern and the people would unload to enjoy a meal and a pint or quart of their favorite beverage. Just before the coach was ready to leave the bartender would tell everybody to "Mind your Ps (Pints) and Qs (Quarts)."

The term "eye-opener" comes from the old days when a person would have a shot of whiskey early in the morning to get their day started. The term "Brand Name" comes from branding the distiller's name on the end of the barrel. I am sure that there are other terms that also have origin in the distillery and/or bar. Can anybody else think of any?

Mike Veach

The story I read about P&Q's was rather the reverse of what you found, Mike. I've read that, to be sure, ale was served in the old days in pints and quarts but when the bartenders were totalling the bill (the check in American usage) some charged for quarts when they should have charged for pints. Hence the admonition to the barkeeps to "mind your P's & Q's".

Gary

Anybody know where "hair of the dog that bit you" comes from? Sounds like a non-alcohol related expression that got transplanted.

There is in fact a literal meaning to this phrase, we just have to dig a bit further into its past, when a common remedy for a dog bite was to apply a hair from the biter to the wound on the bitee. This belief in turn stems directly from the even older belief that "like diseases are cured by like remedies," in Western medical tradition first formulated by Hippocrates, the father of medicine. The dictum "similia similibus curantur" (Latin for 'likes are cured by likes') is the basis of the homeopathic system of medicine, developed in the late eighteenth century by Samuel Hahnemann. The homeopathic remedy for hangovers is a dose of the apt-sounding nux vomica (lit. 'vomiting nut'), the poisonous seed of a tree containing strychnine.

NeoTexan wrote: The homeopathic remedy for hangovers is a dose of the apt-sounding nux vomica (lit. 'vomiting nut'), the poisonous seed of a tree containing strychnine.

I always heard that the best cure for a hangover was more of what gave it to you (isn't that a form of 'like cures like?).

I have practiced that sucessfully a time or two, when the hangover was not too severe to begin with.

Another explanation may simply be it is a joke on the use of the term white dog, or dog for short, to mean liquor.

Gary