Prohibition
The 1920s was the decade of Prohibition, which introduced a slang of its own as the majority of Americans cheerfully broke the law. New names for alcohol, those who dispensed it, and the condition it caused by over-consumption emerged, some of them surviving through the decades. Hooch, giggle juice, giggle water, panther piss, rotgut, strike me dead, juice, coffin varnish, horse lineament, and many other names were used for illegal liquor, describing the product available from different bootleggers and speakeasies. High quality liquor was known as blue nose, or the Real McCoy. Homemade liquor had variety of names as well, including busthead and bathtub gin. Brown plaid referred to Scotch whisky, and was usually counterfeit, rather than the Real McCoy.
Liquor could be had from bootleggers, gin mills, speakeasies, gin joints, barrel houses, drums (a location, not a barrel), and the backseats of flivvers. Drinking too much led to one being blotto, baked, fried, half seas over, hoary-eyed, ossified, and splifficated. A drink was described as a snort, a jorum skee, a slug, a belt, or a blast, and many other names. If a person said that they had to go see a man about a dog, it meant that they were off to buy liquor, and a hair of the dog meant a blast taken for the purpose of dealing with a hangover. A lengthy drinking binge became known as being on a toot, and one on a toot was a rummy.