Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) an unknown, foreign or otherwise incomprehensible language.

1833		Satirist (London) 28 Apr. 557/1: [He] opened the letter, but not being able exactly to understand its contents, he hastened to a friend of his—a schoolmaster, who decided that all that was not English was Choctaw.
1839		N.O. Picayune 1 Mar. 2/4: […] even admitting a person understands French and pronounces the name of a dish correctly, it’s all Hebrew or Choctaw to the waiter [DA].
1850		Manchester Spy (NH) 12 Oct. n.p.: They [i.e. ‘several communications’] are all Greek to ever one connected with our office [...] apparrently written in Choctaw, or some other uncivilized gibberish [sic].
1860		Ladies’ Repository Mar. 191/1: Many of their names were worse than Choctaw to me.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 2 May 23/4: I’ve French, Dutch, Turk, and Greek, / Swede, Fin, and vile Chinee- / And all the lingoes they speak / Are Choctaw to me!
1899		H.E. Hamblen Yarn of a Bucko Mate 30: I stared at him in blank astonishment. His language was Choctaw to me.
1900		E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 27: Choctaw, n. Spanish.
1907		S.P. Carr Iron Way 103: Here’s some stuff that’s been on my mind ever since it went through on the wire before daylight yesterday. It’s Choctaw to me.
1922		R. Beach Flowing Gold 356: ‘Bookkeepin’ is all Choctaw to me. I saw one statement an’ I thought ‘liquid assets’ meant that bottle of whisky Bell left in his desk.

2. (US, also choc (beer), choctaw beer) home-made beer or whisky [? the stereotypical Native American being satisfied with inferior products].

1926		see cit. at chock house n.
1931		A. Hardin ‘Volstead English’ in AS VII:2 86: Terms used for intoxicating liquor: Choc or chalk.
1941		FWP Oklahoma 302: Krebs became known for its production of a drink called Choctaw or ‘choc’ beer, made of hops, tobacco, fishberries, barley and alcohol.
1952		J.B. Martin My Life in Crime 211: We made some of the finest choc beer in the state of Kansas.
1968		R.F. Adams Western Words (2nd edn) 64/1: choc A logger’s name for a low-grade beer originally made by the Choctaw Indians.
1971–2		C. Shafer ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy Bounty of Texas (1990) 201: choc, n. – homemade beer.
1999		M.W. Jones posting 🌐 I have heard about Choc beer often, I think this is short for ‘Choctaw beer,’ it is still made in the MacAllister, Oklahoma area.
2000		(con. 1890s) F. Holub in Noe Valley Voice (CA) Feb. 🌐 He added that our brew reminded him of the Choctaw beer that his mother made when she ran a boardinghouse called the Blue Goose. She served beer to the miners when they came from work in the coal mines in what was then Indian Territory.
2000		Real Beer Page July 🌐 Even in Oklahoma, where the history of legal alcohol sales is pretty short, they’ve got a romantic beer story. This one is about a beer called choc. It begins with a homebrew from the Choctaw Nation of Indian Territory. The story is that the Indians taught Italian immigrants, who came to work in the coal mines, how to make the beer.