Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A drink made of molasses and water, and sometimes a little vinegar and ginger; also, rum and water sweetened with molasses, formerly a common beverage among American sailors; hence, in sailors' use, any strong drink, sweetened and flavored.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun United States A beverage of molasses and water, seasoned with vinegar and ginger.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun US A beverage of molasses and water, seasoned with vinegar and ginger.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Related to sweet.

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Examples

  • Water, thickened with oatmeal, or made spicy with vinegar and ginger, "switchel," as it is called, served to quench the thirst.

    Cowboy Dave Frank V. Webster

  • I think I'll grab a cold glass of switchel after one last chapter revision, and veg out in front of the World Cup.

    jhetley: Return of the Couch Potato jhetley 2010

  • The breakfast was eaten, the luncheon was packed in a large basket, with bottles of root beer and a jug of switchel, which packing I superintended with the greatest interest; and then the cattle were to be collected for the march, and the horses hitched up.

    Being a Boy Charles Dudley Warner 1864

  • The breakfast was eaten, the luncheon was packed in a large basket, with bottles of root beer and a jug of switchel, which packing I superintended with the greatest interest; and then the cattle were to be collected for the march, and the horses hitched up.

    The Complete Project Gutenberg Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Charles Dudley Warner 1864

  • I will give a traveler a cup of switchel, if he want it; but am I bound to supply him with a sweet taste?

    I and My Chimney 1856

  • I will give a traveler a cup of switchel, if he want it; but am I bound to supply him with a sweet taste?

    I and My Chimney Herman Melville 1855

  • This fall, Peels, just across the Bowery from Saxon & Parole, will introduce a switchel.

    NYT > Home Page By ROBERT SIMONSON 2011

  • The old Yankee haymaker’s drink, switchel, was, essentially, vinegar water with molasses and ginger.

    My Cider Vinegar Experiment: The Remarkable Final Report Herrick Kimball 2006

  • “Come, Molly, pretty dear;” set in her father, “no blackstrap to night; no switchel, or ginger-pop.

    Margaret 1851

  • Adding herbs and sweeteners push posca in the direction of more familiar old school vinegar-based drinks like switchel, sekanjabin, and shrub.

    My favorite beverage is a 2,000-year-old energy drink from ancient Rome Gwynn Guilford 2022

Comments

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  • 'What care I, if, unaware that my chimney, as a free citizen of this free land, stands upon an independent basis of its own, people passing it wonder how such a brick-kiln, as they call it, is supported upon mere joists and rafters? What care I? I will give a traveller a cup of switchel, if he want it; but am I bound to supply him with a sweet taste? Men of cultivated minds see, in my old house and chimney, a goodly old elephant-and-castle.'

    - Melville, I and My Chimney

    (A must read for all fans of things Freudian)

    April 3, 2010

  • This sounds yummy

    March 4, 2014

  • A fishing boat captain named Twitchell

    Will end every trip with a ritual:

    He toasts his last catch

    With rum down the hatch

    And gleefully ditches his switchel.

    February 3, 2019