Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also dew) whisky, ‘advertised as from the Highlands’ (Hotten, 1860).

1838		Inverness Courier 12 Dec. 3/4: THe tenantry pledged the health of the Laird and his lady in overflowing bumpers of mountain dew.
1843		R.S. Surtees Handley Cross (1854) 549: Pigg having gone out [...] to meet his friend Whiskey Tim and recruit his stock of mountain dew.
1858		Bell’s Life in Sydney 5 June 3/3: Its barman I am [...] at the Dungannon Castle, a real dacint house, where the whiskey’s genivine mountain dew.
1865		Morpeth Herald 20 May 4/4: [advert] Wine and Spirit Merchant invites the attention of the people [...] to his real Mountain Dew Whisky.
1874		Manchester Eve. News 9 June 4/5: The pair adjourned to a place of refreshment [...] for the purpose of getting ‘a drop of the mountain dew’.
1881		Manchester Eve. News 17 June 2/4: ‘Potato whisky’ is well known in Scotland and Ireland too [and] not unfrequently it finds its way into the genuine ‘dew’.
1882		Dundee Eve. Teleg. 8 Aug. 4/3: An old Scottish dame, rather too fond of ‘the mountain dew’, was one day ‘unco drothie’ and without funds.
1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 3 Aug. 5/1: He was fairly well primed with ‘mountain dew’.
1890		Dead Bird (Sydney) 12 July 3/1: You are a funny coon [...] You must have timed your dog [...] when under the influence of mountain dew.
1893		Sheffield Dly Teleg. 26 Aug. 5/3: Jamie was a convivial soul who occasionally quaffed more of the mountain dew than was good for him.
1905		N.Y. Tribune 15 Jan. 11/1: I can say that the Irish ‘Mountain Dew’ far excels any other elixir.
1926		Cork Examiner 2 July 9/3: [advert] ‘Real Mounrtain Dew’ The Whisky of Outstanding Quality.

2. (also mountain juice) illicitly distilled alcohol, contraband whisky.

1824		T. Moore Memoirs of Captain Rock xi: On the third evening of my stay, however, the influence of the genial ‘mountain dew’ [...] so far prevailed over my fears and my prudence, that I sallied forth, alone.
1848		‘Ned Buntline’ Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. I 59: The best ‘mountain dew,’ the finest ‘bog poteen’.
1849		Limerick & Clare Examiner (Ireland) 13 Oct. 1/6: The ‘poteen peelers’ have, however, as yet met with none of the real manufactured mountain dew.
1851		Advocate (Dublin) 21 May 10/1: ‘Take over that little keg of mountain dew [...] with my compliments to Mr Screwall’.
1866		Sportsman 25 Oct. 2/1: Notes on News [...] [A] saloon ‘where they were treated to a mountain dew’.
1870		Mercury (Hubart) 23 Apr. 2/5: [from the Stranraer Free Press] whiskey, the real thing, mountain dew .
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 27 Oct. 14/1: There is more delight in a pint of ‘mountain dew’ – made in gullies all over N.S.W. – than in a bucketful of the best Scotch or Irish ever imported.
1908		‘O. Henry’ ‘A Summer Masquerade’ in Gentle Grafter (1915) 95: The landlord [...] got out a demijohn of North Carolina real mountain dew.
1913		H. Kephart Our Southern Highlanders (1922) 190: ‘Mountain dew’ will be collected by fly-by-night cars.
1919		Sun (NY) 1 June 67/7: [headline] ‘Dry’ Laws in Many Localities Serve to Boom Traffic in ‘Mountain Dew’.
1926		Wood & Goddard Dict. Amer. Sl.
1934		‘Good Ol Mountain Dew’ in Lomax & Lomax Amer. Ballads and Folk Songs 180: Beside a hill there is a still [...] You can always tell by the whiff and the smell, / That the liquor boys are nigh. / This mountain dew is made from grain, / And mixed with water pure.
1935		L. Hughes Mulatto in Three Negro Plays (1969) Act I: Taste better’n this old mountain juice we get around here.
1947		F. Brown Fabulous Clipjoint (1949) 180: Mountain dew, hell. That’s good Scotch.
1950		Aberdeen Jrnl 3 Jan. 2/3: The Excise Officers seized 40 bushels of malt along with [...] smuggling utensils, proving that the people [...] were preparing to manufacture the genuine ‘Mountain Dew’.
1962		B. Behan Brendan Behan’s Island (1984) 126: Keep away from potheen. No matter what anyone tells you about the fine old drop of ‘Mountain Dew’, it stands to common sense that a few old men [...] with milk-churns and all sorts of improvised utensils, cannot hope to make good spirits.
1966		K. Porter ‘Still More Ethnic and Place names as Derisive Adjectives’ Western Folklore XXV:1 39: Mountain dew. Illicitly distilled whiskey; ‘moonshine’.
1979		(con. 1949) J. Hurling Boomers 137: Shut up mah mug an’ fill up mah jug with thet good ol’ mountain doooo —.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.
2000		N. Griffiths Grits 151: That irish feller with-a ponytail an-a hooch; off, fuckin firewater that, boy, aye [...] The mountain dew like.
2007		W. Ellis Crooked Little Vein 140: I hear they [i.e. the poor] can’t afford water, sir, and drink something called Mountain Dew.
2012		T. Pluck ‘Summer of Blind Joe Death’ in Life During Wartime (2018) 163: ‘They’ve made the mountain dew since I was your age’.

3. (W.I.) marijuana.

1988		W. Chen King of the Carnival 21: It was here the men gathered to smoke ganja, as the stench of mountain dew soured their breaths and clouded their senses.
2006		W. Chen Chutney Power and Stories 37: Ramjass brought out a nip of mountain dew.