Rotgut

Filed Under April 2007, columns 

Roll out the barrel.

Dear Word Detective: My first job out of college involved giving people tours of an old medical school building at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. In the corner of one of the rooms was an old barrel — supposedly to carry dead bodies from the graveyard to the med school where students would dissect them. The story goes that the barrel would have whiskey in it so that if the gravediggers were stopped on the street, they could tap the barrel and prove to the officer that it was a delivery of alcohol going to the local bar. Once the body was removed at the school, the gravediggers would either drink the whiskey themselves or sell it cheap to the students. This booze was called “rot gut whiskey” since the dead bodies would have been in the early state of deterioration. This is the story that I told to hundreds of people during these tours. Now I wonder — is this the right source for the term “rot gut whiskey” or was I spreading an urban legend without knowing it? — Michelle Wilkinson, now in Seattle.

That’s an interesting question, but first, I have my own story. Last summer our neighbor sold his house to a fellow who was delighted that the land included, among other things, a small pond stocked with fish. “Hey, now I can shoot my own fish,” the buyer said. The seller thought he was joking. But a mere twelve hours into his occupancy we heard this clown blasting away at the poor fishies. Not quite “shooting fish in a barrel,” but close enough.

That story, by the way, is true, which is a quality the one about “rotgut” you heard (and innocently spread) does not share. And unlike superficially plausible word-origin fables that can be difficult to debunk, this one can be deflated as easily as shooting fish in a pond. It’s full of glitches.

Glitch Number One is the fact that “rotgut” as slang for adulterated or very low quality liquor or beer first appeared in print in 1633. The website of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, however, informs us that “The School of Medicine was established in 1807,” the same year the University itself was founded. Oops.

Glitch Number Two is that the story makes no real sense. While cadavers were, historically, sometimes obtained by medical researchers and others by less than straightforward means (Michelangelo, for instance, is said to have stolen corpses to study anatomy), the “stiff-in-the-barrel” plan is awkward, overly elaborate and, thus, almost certain to “leak” (yuk yuk) to the police.

Glitch Number Three is that the story is utterly unnecessary. “Rotgut” whiskey (or beer) is so-called because it was so crudely made that it was suspected (quite rightly) of damaging (”rotting”) the innards (”guts”) of its drinker.

The only remaining question is who put that bogus barrel in the corner.

 

 

Comments

One Response to “Rotgut”

  1. RolyMole on May 17th, 2007 8:31 am

    Having been killed at Trafalgar, Nelson’s body was put in a barrel of rum to preserve it during the journey back to England for full state burial.
    His crew supposedly drank a toast to him with this rum once they returned (there is still a brand of rum called something like Nelson’s Body).
    Pickled? I think so.

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