Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US black, also kong) cheap, potent, homemade whisky.

1938		A.J. Liebling Back Where I Came From (1990) 153: The wine of the country [i.e. Harlem] is a liquid sometimes called King Kong [...] The better form [...] is moonshine prepared in kitchen stills from hominy in grits and sugar [...] There is a lower form made from grain alcohol adulterated with rye flavoring.
1938		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 15 Jan. 17/1: [A] puff of weed, a shot of ‘king kong’ and a batch of weakfish.
1943		I. Wolfert Tucker’s People (1944) 55: It was nickel-a-drink whisky, the kind the Negroes called King Kong.
1944		D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 12: She’s in her dried barkers like kong in glassware.
1949		‘Hal Ellson’ Duke viii: King Kong – a cheap, potent, usually illegally made drink.
1958		Murtagh & Harris Cast the First Stone 24: Monkey’s King kong certainly did pack a tremendous wallop and there was no telling the effects it could have on people.
1967		in S. Harris Hellhole 117: A notorious and pitiful drunk who spent most of the relief check on cheap wine or king kong.
1996		Eble Sl. and Sociability 82: Most striking is the lack of terms for drinking and drunk. There are only 7 in 435: conk-buster, ink, King Kong, and kong all refer to cheap varieties of wine and liquor.
2009		W.D. Myers Dope Sick 54: I cut back some. I wasn’t completely correct, and she knew it, but I wasn’t sleeping with King Kong every day either.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1946

Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 247: On the second floor was a King Kong speakeasy, where you could get yourself five-cent and ten-cent shots of home-brewed corn, if you didn’t care about dissolving the enamel on your teeth.

3. (US drugs) a strong addiction.

1972

Smith & Gay Heroin in Perspective 204: King Kong. A big monkey ($200 or more a day heroin habit).