Green’s Dictionary of Slang

an alcoholic drink, esp. gin.

1819		P. Egan Key to the Picture of the Fancy going to a Fight 28: Walking Distillers also abound with ‘a drop of the right sort’.
1825		T.C. Croker Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland (1862) 205: The poteen was the right sort. It was first rate, and had the real smack upon it.
1832		Satirist (London) 9 Dec. 394/2: [She] called for a quartern of ‘the right sort out of the bottle’ [...] the landlady’s daughter [...] drew the gin from the usual tap.
1838		Freeman’s Jrnl 12 Sept. 4/2: Each good man and true insisting upon his vested rights to a glass of the right sort.
1846		London Eve. Standard 26 Feb. 1/6: ‘Well, John, what do you say to a glass of beer?’ ‘The right sort’.
1859		G.A. Sala Gaslight and Daylight 72: Telling, in seductive language, of ‘Choice Compounds,’ ‘Old Tom,’ ‘Cream of the Valley,’ ‘Superior Cream Gin,’ ‘The Right Sort’ [etc.].
1864		Western Gaz. 23 Jan. 3/5: Calling [...] to beg a glass of the right sort.
1897		Mirror of Life 18 Aug. 3/2: Hatton [...] kept a bottle of the right sort of tipple in his booth for his friends.