sour mash
2
7.4
- noun
- /ˈsaʊər mæʃ/
- Specialized
:
mash agrio
- His grin gaped; his sour-mash breath blanketed the car.
- sour mash whiskey
- bottle of sour mash
Examples
-
The odor of sour mash and fermented peaches hung over the place like an alcoholic fog.
Fiction book (2001) -
He knew that J.J. was the one, and he reached for his thermos of sour mash.
Fiction book (1991) -
After all, it isn't supposed to taste like sour mash.
Blog text (12) -
No. 8 sour mash.
Fiction book (2000) -
Sounds like they've already got a head start on Jud's sour mash whiskey.
-
One evening, hogs had gotten into the sour mash and were staggering around drunk.
Fiction book (1998) -
You got all liquored up on sour mash and made a hole in the roof of your Chevy with your four-ten.
Fiction book (1994) -
One was dismayed to learn that Jack Daniels is a Tennessee sour mash whiskey, not a Kentucky sipping bourbon.
Academic text (1994) -
Visitors line up to take free tours that demonstrate every step in the making of Tennessee's world-famous sour mash whiskey.
-
Next to his feet was the bottle of sour mash.
Synonyms
282
2.8
A drink with alcohol that people make from grain and leave in wooden barrels to age
1
7.2
People add some mash from an earlier batch when making whiskey to keep the same flavor
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is partly compositional: a B1 learner who knows 'sour' (fermented/acid) and 'mash' (crushed grain mixture) can infer a ‘mash that is sour’ and thus likely a type of whiskey made from such a mash. However, the specific production detail (that part of a previous batch is used to start fermentation) is a technical, culture-specific process not predictable from the constituents alone, so the term is only partially transparent.
Etymology
The noun sour mash comes from a simple way of making whiskey: makers save some old, slightly sour mash (the wet grain mix) and add it to a new batch to help it start fermenting. That's why sour mash now means 'a way of making whiskey' or the 'whiskey made this way'.