bathtub gin

American  

noun

Informal.

1. homemade gin, especially gin made illegally during Prohibition.

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Etymology

Origin of bathtub gin

First recorded in 1920–25

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bathtub gin

At 90 minutes, that night is brief, maybe too brief, and feels less like an immersive soak in Prohibition New York than a slug of bathtub gin.

From New York Times ● Nov. 2, 2021

But if social media are any gauge , dancing at home is the coronavirus pandemic’s bathtub gin.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 21, 2020

Churchwell fills out her account with amusing period paraphernalia, such as Fitzgerald's recipe for bathtub gin, or a list of the era's new terminology: "cool", "slick", "mass media", "ritzy", "merchant bank".

From The Guardian ● Jun. 29, 2013

The new songs by James Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn are tepid at best, and Joe Layton's dance interludes are as spurious as bathtub gin, introduced solely to juice up a weak scenario.

From Time Magazine Archive

To the surprise of those who thought Strip per Sally had gone out with bathtub gin, she seemed to have changed hardly at all.

From Time Magazine Archive