Green’s Dictionary of Slang

the nose.

1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London II 149: Dig away;—mind your hits;—rattle her bread basket;—set her claret-spout a-going.
1832		S. Warren Diary of a Late Physician in Works (1854) III 86: Tap his claret cask – draw his cork!
1859		Punch ‘A Chapter on Sl.’ XXXVII 22: A man’s broken nose, is his claret-jug smashed .
1889		Times-Democrat (New Orleans, LA) 9 July 3/6: Prize Ring Slang [...] ‘claret jug,’ ‘conk,’ ‘nozzle,’ ‘snorer,’ ‘proboscis,’ the nose.
1897		Atchison Dly Champion (KS) 12 Mar. 2/1: Prize-fighters these days never break a ‘claret jug,’ nor do they get a ‘cant on the kisser’.
1909		N.Z. Truth 16 Oct. 8/3: His left [...] feached the damaged optic, reopening the claret jug.
1933		‘William Juniper’ True Drunkard’s Delight 243: Claret, the nose being the claret-jug.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 60: crack the claret jug A nose bleed; to bleed.

to cause someone’s nose to bleed with a blow.

1812		Mr. Lawson ‘Chaunt’ in Egan Boxiana I 477: But of his hogshead he was shy, / lest they should tap his claret.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc.
1824		Emerald (N.Y.) 16 Oct. 109/1–2: Round 21. – Kensett tapped the claret from under Hammond’s left peeper.
1827		W. Clarke Every Night Book 83: Their [i.e. prize-fighters’] language he would find mighty mysterious [...] drawing blood, is in Eganism, ‘tapping the claret’.
1832		Satirist (London) 4 Nov. 358/2: Then the prize-fighters brag, with a merciless paw, / That your claret they’ll tap, if you don’t hold your jaw.
1835		N.Y. Transcript 4 Feb. 2/2–3: M’Lean tapped Reed’s claret by a blow to his chin, which made his box of dominoes rattle.
1845		Bell’s Life in Sydney 6 Dec. 4/1: As prompt as thought, thine enemy to drop, / To tap the claret, and to hit and stop.
1849		Sam Sly 17 Feb. 2/3: [S]ome were for tapping your claret, others for blacking your eyes, and many for following you to your office and exposing you to your master.
1850		F.E. Smedley Frank Fairlegh (1878) 215: I [...] caught Wentworth full on the nose, tapping his claret for him, as the pugilists call it, and sending him down like a shot.
1853		‘Cuthbert Bede’ Adventures of Mr Verdant Green (1982) I 118: He told Verdant, that his claret had been repeatedly tapped [...] and his whole person put in chancery, stung, bruised, fibbed, propped, fiddled, slogged, and otherwise ill-treated.
1862		Golden Age (Queanbeyan, NSW) 4 Sept. 3/2: Tom’s fistic slang is like so much Hebrew to us, we being in a most pastoral state of ignorance as to the meanings of [...] ‘tapping the claret,’ ‘flinging up the sponge,’ and the various other terms with which he garnishes his narrative.
1866		H.L. Williams Gay Life in N.Y. 88: A noted pugilist who ‘queered the ogles,’ ‘tapped the claret;’ smashed the ivories;’ and ‘pounded the breadbasket;’ of many an adversary.
1873		Taunton Courier 5 Feb. 3/3: He did not ‘tap his claret’ as they say.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 18 Apr. 12/2: We wouldn’t like a Saturday-night larrikin to damn his immortal soul by taking up arms, or one of his arms, and tapping the claret of that dear, good Collingwood constable.
1887		Abilene Reflector (KS) 19 May 7/3: Who ever heard a champion of the ring say that he gave his antagonist a [...] bloody nose? He prefers [...] ‘tapped the claret’.
1905		Marvel III:56 16: By-the-by, was it you who tapped his claret?
1910		Sporting Times 1 Jan. 10/1: Did not [he] promptly accept the wager, and win it with a smack that touched the plaister and tapped the claret at the same time, to the chagrin of the bruiser.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 305: The welterweight champion had tapped some lively claret in the previous mixup during which Keogh had been receivergeneral of rights and lefts, the artilleryman putting in some neat work on the pet’s nose.
1927		(con. 1835–40) P. Herring Bold Bendigo 59: Egad! Bendy’s tapped his claret.
1937		E. Raymond Marsh 113: The claret’s runnin’. Both of ’em’s tapped the claret.
1941		Essex Newsman 15 Nov. 1/1: Even if an ox [...] were secured, would it suffice to ‘tap its claret’.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
2010		K. Richards Life 296: They’re on the floor moaning and whining, claret everywhere.

to cause someone’s nose to bleed with a blow.

1824

Pierce Egan’s Life in London 26 Sept. 5/2: His Lordship rushed in with great impetuosity, and placed two feelers on Matthew's proboscis, which uncorked the claret tidily.