spruce beer

noun

a fermented beverage made with spruce leaves and twigs, or an extract from them.

Origin of spruce beer

First recorded in 1490–1500

Words Nearby spruce beer

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use spruce beer in a sentence

I told th' ole woman that spruce beer ain't so good as usual this brewin'.'
Cedar Creek | Elizabeth Hely Walshe
Amherst thought that spruce beer was a remedy against scurvy and made great quantities of it.
Ben Comee | M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
Two men were appointed to brew spruce beer; and the carpenter and his crew were ordered to cut wood.
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) | Robert Kerr
In addition to this medicine I drank, as my common beverage with my meals, spruce beer.
Zoonomia, Vol. II | Erasmus Darwin
Others were employed to brew spruce-beer, as pine-trees abounded here.
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 | Robert Kerr

British Dictionary definitions for spruce beer

spruce beer

noun

an alcoholic drink made of fermented molasses flavoured with spruce twigs and cones

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Browse