kill-devil

In a blind tasting, the rums ran the gamut from bland and watery to complex and fiery, with a few skull-popping examples that illustrate why the earliest name for rum was "kill-devil."

From the Demonic to the Delectable 2008

First, negroes with bill-hooks to clear the way; then the van-guard; then the main body, interspersed with negroes bearing boxes of ball-cartridges; then the rear-guard, with many more negroes, bearing camp-equipage, provisions, and new rum, surnamed "kill-devil," and appropriately followed by a sort of palanquin for the disabled.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 31, May, 1860 Various

These rebels were no saints: their worship was obi-worship; the women had not far outgrown the plantation standard of chastity, and the men drank "kill-devil" like their betters.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 31, May, 1860 Various

The three had taken in full lading of kill-devil rum, and Tyburn

Audrey Mary Johnston 1903

We went upon several plantations where Gerrit was acquainted with almost all of the people, who made us very welcome, sharing with us bountifully whatever they had, whether it was milk, cider, fruit or tobacco, and especially, and first and most of all, miserable rum or brandy which had been brought from Barbados and other islands, and which is called by the Dutch _kill-devil_.

Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 Jasper Danckaerts 1898

John Eliot spelled it "rumb," and Josselyn called it plainly "that cussed liquor, Rhum, rumbullion, or kill-devil."

Customs and Fashions in Old New England Alice Morse Earle 1881

First, negroes with bill-hooks to clear the way; then the van-guard; then the main body, interspersed with negroes bearing boxes of ball-cartridges; then the rear-guard, with many more negroes, bearing camp-equipage, provisions, and new rum, surnamed "kill-devil," and appropriately followed by a sort of palanquin for the disabled.

Black Rebellion Five Slave Revolts Thomas Wentworth Higginson 1867

Most of the rum they get in this country comes from New England, and is so bad and unwholesome, that it is not improperly called "kill-devil."

The Westover Manuscripts: Containing the History of the Dividing Line Betwixt Virginia and North Carolina; A Journey to the Land of Eden, A. D. 1733; and A Progress to the Mines. Written from 1728 to 1736, and Now First Published 1841

"Nigger Pew," -- where, I am sorry to record, he more than once solaced and warmed himself with a bottle of "kill-devil" which he had smuggled into church, until he fell ignominiously asleep and his drunken snores so disturbed the minister and the congregation, that two tithingmen were forced to climb the ladder-like staircase and pull him down and out of the church and to the neighboring tavern to sleep off the effects of the liquor.

Sabbath in Puritan New England Alice Morse Earle 1881

a rum punch which seems to have been concocted first by Admiral Bombo, from a New England brand of rum so very deadly that it was not inaptly styled 'kill-devil' by the early planters of the colony.

Lady Baltimore Owen Wister 1899