Green’s Dictionary of Slang

lotion n.

a drink; thus as v. to drink.

1870		Sportsman (London) ‘Notes on News’ 2 Feb. 2/1: It is not [...] on gravy in its domestic attributes that we here intend to comment, but rather in abstract connection with the whole army of liquids which, with ‘lotion,’ it has been in slang circles adopted.
1876		C. Hindley Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack 99: Friday handed them the ‘lotion’ in pint and quart mugs.
1878		Cornishman 5 Dec. 4/4: I knew a man who had ‘lotioned’ his throat 15 consecutive times in one evening.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 1 Aug. 10/1: He sent you forth to learn a trade- / He launched you on life’s ocean- / And this is the return you made; / To go a steal his ‘lotion.’.
1886		Sporting Times 29 May 2/1: He mixed one [i.e. a drink] of ebony hue, a positive nigger among lotions.
1890		Dead Bird (Sydney) 5 Apr. 2/2: Death to dirty water-drinkers, / All unhallowed lotion-sinkers.
1891		‘’Arry on a ’ouseboat’ in Punch 15 Aug. 76: Pooty girls, first-class lotion, and music.
1909		E. Waltham Life and Labour in Aus. 31: No sooner do we ‘breast the bar’ than a huge rough-and-ready miner accosts us thusly, [...] ‘What’s your lotion?’.
1914		E. Pugh Cockney At Home 67: The lotion flowed as free as rain.
1933		‘William Juniper’ True Drunkard’s Delight.
1936		C. Drew ‘The Squib’ in Bulletin (Sydney) 23 Sept. 36/1: ‘What do you think?’ says Schnapper after he had lowered his lotion.
1997		L. Pettiway Workin’ It 181: Sometime I would go to the markets and steal. Lotion or meat, you know, go sell that.

In derivatives

lotioned (adj.)

drunken.

1878

‘’Arry on the Turf’ in Punch 29 Nov. 297/1: A well lotioned Derby Day’s Houting’s the one as is most to my mind!