whiskbroom ‘with’, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

whiskbroom ‘with’ n.

also whiskbroom

[an anecdote of late-19C Prohibition (then restricted to certain states rather than the nationwide version of 1920–33), a temperance campaigner, on entering a haberdasher’s to buy a whiskbroom was offered one ‘with’ and one ‘without’. On asking what this meant she was shown that a broom ‘with’ had a small bottle of whisky hidden amid its bristles]

(US) drunkenness.

1897		Daily Tel. 8 July in Ware (1909) 263/1: Prohibition (U.S.A.) has always been followed by a remarkable display of ingenuity in evasion, but, according to Miss Kate Field, no State ever evaded the prohibitory law so neatly as Kansas. Desiring to purchase a whiskbroom when on a lecture tour out there, Miss Field went into a druggist’s where they were displayed in the window. ‘Will you have one with or without?’ asked the man behind the counter. ‘I do not understand your meaning,’ she replied. Holding up two whiskbrooms apparently exactly alike, he parted the wisps of one, disclosing a small flask, and with a little whirl of his thumb and finger the top of the broom came off, like the cork out of a bottle.
1898		F. Dumont Dumont’s Joke Book 45: tambo: – I got up and called for a little whisk –. mid: – Whisk-broom? tambo: – No, old whisk! The barber took out a bottle and I took a drink.