Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. cheap, inferior, home-brewed alcohol.

1866

Wild Boys of London I 150/1: ‘Let Schooly git a little lodenum.’ ‘What for?’ ‘Just to drop in his swipe. It’ll make him werry heavy, and he’ll sleep like a top.’.

2. a heavy drinker.

1835		‘The Whacking fat Pot-Boy’ in Rumcodger’s Coll. in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 253: Mister Snip, you must know, was a bit of a wipe, / Athe inn every night, he did smoke his pipe, / While t’other went out with his beer.
1866		Wild Boys of London I 44/2: ‘Mat’s an awful swipe.’ [...] ‘Oh!’ said Mat in deep indignation of the charge, ‘I is almost a teetotaller.’.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 11 Mar. 1/1: A Subiaco beer swipe takes the scone for persistent bumming.

3. a drink.

1887		H. Caine Deemster I 234: Give us a swipe o’ them speerits.
1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 1 Jan. 4/8: He had a swipe of tea.