Mickey Finn (mickey): a surreptitiously adulterated drink (or the drug added to the drink to make it so) given to somebody for the purpose of rendering them insensible or unconscious (NOAD).
siphon: a water bottle, for making scotch and soda
The fat man began to fill two glasses from bottle and siphon. (TMF, p105.)
tight: tipsy; drunk; feeling no pain; not completely blitzed, but pleasantly sozzled [also used in British English ca. 1940s, per BF]
“And stop talking to me as if I was twelve.” “It’s not that,” I explained. “I’m getting tight.” (TTM, p13.)
“I’m afraid I was tight last night,” he said. “And very objectionable, I’m afraid. I apologize unreservedly.” (BF, p176.)
snoutful: drink; booze; connotation being enough booze to get “tight”
“There’ll be some coffee in a little while. Where’d you get the snoutful?” (TTM, p18.)
drunk as a lord: very, very drunk
Quinn was drunk as a lord… (TTM, p110.)
cokie: coke-head; cocaine addict
…cokies and coke peddlers… (THW, p 71)
reefer: pot; joint
The wall bed with the usual distorting mirror faced me as I opened the door and made me look like a two-time loser sneaking home from a reefer party. (THW, p 73)
“Maybe you don’t like the reefer smoke.” (TLS, p29)
“It looked funny, him — Marriott — having that extra case. With the reefers in it.” (FML, p196)
weed: pot
“A claim check for a suitcase full of weed.” (TLS, p175)
“You were in a Packard right over there” — I pointed — “andI went over and opened the door and sniffed the weed.” (PB, p102)
pony glass: drinking glass of some sort?
I unlocked my deep drawer and got out my office bottle and two pony glasses. (TBS, p60)
hootch: booze; liquor
“Geiger was dead and Carmen would have to find some other shady character to drink exotic blends of hootch with.” (TBS, p128.)
loaded: spiked; stiffened; adulterated
“We sipped our loaded coffee.” (TBS, p147)
dip the bill: have a drink
“Fine. Let’s dip the bill. Got a glass?” (TBS, p174)
lush: (lush; drunk)
“Can I go on being a son of a bitch, or do I have to become a gentleman, like that lush passed out in his car the other night?” (TBS, p228)
jammed: intoxicated; tight; bolognied; pie-eyed; piffled; shot; shellacked; canned; out like a light; stewed to the hat; potted; jiggered; tanked
”A friend of Harry’s we met there was the darbs, and after that we drifted to a couple of the clubs, and both the boys got beautifully shellacked.” “Shellacked! I don’t understand.” “Jammed, both of them.” (WWW1)
“He got himself all jammed up with a floozy and a bottle of hooch and what he’s done looks to him as if he’s stolen the bishop’s pants.” (TLS, p14)
gin mill: bar; speakeasy?; drinking establishment; night club
“He dragged me into every gin mill on the block.” (TTM-F)
swish: soda water(?); a drink
There was a silk Oriental rug in front of a nice rose davenport, in front of the nice fire, and in beside that there was Scotch and swish on a tabouret, ice in a bucket, everything to make a man feel at home. (TMB, p15)
hooch: liquor; booze; etc.
“Maybe I’d better have another finger of the hooch,” she said. (TMB, p80)
“He got himself all jammed up with a floozy and a bottle of hooch and what he’s done looks to him as if he’s stolen the bishop’s pants.” (TLS, p14)
junked up/junked to the eyes/etc: high
“Will you go out now, before he gets junked up for the evening?” (TMB, p120)
“The night man was junked to the eyes. Harmless as a kitten.” (PB, p62)
coke-hound: cocaine addict
“They saw you somewhere, and Peeler recognized you. He got to thinking how he could make himself some jack. But he was a coke-hound and talked in his sleep. ” (TMB, p152)
gargle: drink
“We’ll go to my place and gargle. I don’t like it here.” (TMB, p142)
gill: drink
The brunette unwound her legs and made two drinks with soda and ice. She took herself another gill without trimmings, wound herself back on the davenport. (TMB, p199)
plastered: drunk
You could tell by his eyes that he was plastered to the hairline, but otherwise he looked like any other nice young guy in a dinner jacket who had been spending too much money in a joint that exists for that purpose and not other. (TLG, p3)
stinko: drunk; tight; blotto
“Can you make it? Are you stinko?” (TLG, p9)
I did that night what I had done the other two nights, while I was waiting on the inquest, I got stinko, or tried to. I knocked off a quart of cognac, but it didn’t have any effect. (DI, p68)
“Sure, I was drunk. I was stinko.” (PRT, p55)
iced: drunk
“Sylvia dead drunk, paralyzed, splifficated, iced to the eyebrows,” I said harshly. (TLG, p30)
juice: booze
It was the same old cocktail party, everybody talking too loud, nobody listening, everybody hanging on for dear life to a mug of juice, eyes very bright, cheeks flushed or pale and sweaty according to the amount of alcohol consumed and the capacity of the individual to handle it. (TLG, p171)
stiff: drunk; plastered; very similar to “tight”
Either I would get really stiff or stay sober. (TLG, p335)
slug: a shot of liquor; a large swallow of booze
I got the office bottle out of the deep drawer and poured a slug and then got the phone book off the hook at the desk and looked up the number of the Journal. (TLG, p329)
muggle-smoker/muggle: pothead; druggie
“Desk clerk’s a muggle-smoker.” (TLS, p242)
“Just one more question. How in hell do you get away with it? The muggles, I mean.” He looked around. “I only smoke when I feel extra special low.” (PB, p103)
bindle-stiff: victim of a drug overdose
“They were just as dead as any of the score or more ‘bindle-stiffs’ I had found in the jungles,” White wrote. He used the term “bindle-stiff,” slang for the victim of a drug overdose, to give the impression that he’d seen scores of corpses, and he had… (BGP, p64)
bindle: small quantity of narcotics (HB)
skinful: a lot to drink; too much too drink; drink to excess
“Take it easy, Larry. You’ve got a skinful.” (PB, p47)
snort: sip; swig
“There’s a pint in the glove compartment. Want a snort?” (PB, p87)
nibble / nibble one: drink / have a drink
“I’m feelin’ good,” he said. “I wouldn’t want anybody to fuss with me. Let’s you and me go on up and maybe nibble a couple.” (FML, p6)
“Yeah,” he said. “Let’s you and me nibble one.” (FML, p10)
dead soldier: (dead soldier) empty bottle
I held up the dead soldier and shook it. Then I threw it to one side and reached back on my hip for the pint of bond bourbon the Negro hotel clerk and I had barely tapped. (FML, p28)
juju: joint
“I knew a guy once who smoked jujus,” she said. “Three highballs and three ticks of tea and it took a pipe wrench to get him off the chandelier.” (FML, p73)
(stick of) tea: joint
Ibid.
So they were evidence. Evidence of what? That a man occasionally smoked a stick of tea, a man who looked as if any touch of the exotic would appeal to him. (FML, p99)
gowed-up: high? drunk?
“What must have happened is that some gowed-up run they took along for a gun-holder lost his head.” (FML, p96)
(two-day) liquor cure: private clinic for curing alcoholism or addiction; connotation of being very quiet/private, and/or shady; a place used for discretion; also shady, because of the promise of a weekend cure
“You sit there and tell me that after the man had you beaten up by a couple of crooked policemen and thrown in a two-day liquor cure to teach you to mind your own business?” (FML, p186)
dope hospital: clinic for treating addiction; SEE ALSO “liquor cure”
“I’ve been thrown unconscious into this dope hospital and kept there locked up and part of the time probably strapped down.” (FML, p195)
doper: one who takes dope; drug user; addict
“What did he look like?” “Like a doper, and a dope peddler.” (FML, p202)
dope peddler: drug dealer
Ibid.
pie-eyed: stupefied; also, very drunk
Randall was pie-eyed. His mouth moved, but nothing came out of it. (FML, p217)
needled-up: high; addicted to drugs
“We think about them the way we think about old time yeggs or needled-up punks.” (FML, p253)
hooker: portion; glass; a measurement of drink? or a vessel?
I poured out a couple hookers of gin. She went into the kitchen for another siphon and some ice. (RH, p88)
hopped up: (hopped up) high; tripping; drugged; etc.
“I was all hopped up that night, and had a lot of dreams…” (RH, p213)
hop-head: doper; drug addict; one who takes drugs (one who gets hopped up)
“I got an idea maybe it wasn’t straight dreaming so much as hop-head nightmares stirred up by the things that were happening around me.” (RH, p213)
coked / coked to the edges: high; drugged; tripping; on drugs
“You gallop out, coked to the edges, charging at the whole world with both eyes shut.” (RH, p215)