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spruce beer

noun
  1. a fermented beverage made with spruce leaves and twigs, or an extract from them.
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Origin of spruce beer

First recorded in 1490–1500
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for spruce beer

Historical Examples

  • Spruce-beer is made from the young shoots of the American Black Spruce.

    Botany for Ladies

    Jane Loudon

  • Barrels of cider and spruce-beer are running freely into the wooden canteens of the soldiers.

    Old News

    Nathaniel Hawthorne

  • In two minutes, however, he relented in his own favour; and muttering something about spruce-beer, walked off.

    Emma

    Jane Austen

  • On this last signal, a whole cloud of spruce-beer sellers started fiercely from under the piazzas.

    Tom Cringle's Log

    Michael Scott

  • At Washington we dined, and I drank some spruce-beer (for the first time in my life), and I found myself very unwell from it.

British Dictionary definitions for spruce beer

spruce beer

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