six o'clock swill

British  

noun

1. informal a period of heavy drinking, esp during the years when hotels had to close their bars at 6.00 p.m

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Example Sentences

Pubs shut at six, because that was good for all of us, leading to the famous “six o’clock swill”, where boozers would down as many as they could before closing time.

From The Guardian

They say, ‘As much as we like this, as much as we talk about that, do we really want to go back to the world of the six o’clock swill and a world where a woman had to give up her job the moment she got married?’

From The Guardian

Similar regulation of closing times throughout the 20th century led to the Australian phenomenon known as the “six o’clock swill.”

From Slate

Instead of civilized consumption in the early evening as the campaigners envisioned, however, the measure spawned a mad rush known as the six o’clock swill, when men downed as many beers as possible in a rapid-fire drinking spree before the last call.

From New York Times