Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also tanglefoot juice, tanglefoot whisky, tanglehoof, tanglewood) whisky.

1857		Louisville Dly Courier (KY) 29 Jan. 3/2: He got among the liquor houses [...] where he swallowed tangle-foot as freely as it was Bourbon.
1864		‘Edmund Kirke’ Down in Tennessee 185: They obtain plentiful supplies of [...] ‘Tangle-foot,’ ‘Blue-ruin,’ ‘Red-eye.’.
1865		Burlington Wkly Hawk-Eye (IA) 1 Apr. 8/1: When they have a little too much ‘tangle-foot juice’ aboard [etc].
1872		‘Mark Twain’ Innocents at Home 336: He could [...] hold more tangle-foot whisky without spilling it than any man in seventeen counties.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 9 May 5/2: One regenerate old reprobate in a red flannel so far forgot himself as to invite a brother soldier out to the nearest pub., there to absorb ‘tanglefoot’ ‘on the strength of it.’.
1889		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 21 Dec. 3/1: Some men drink tanglefoot because they are hot, others because they are cold. Some indulge because they are wet and some because they are dry .
1890		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 10 May 7/4: Years ago Vane was in a railroad accident, by which he lost both his arms at the shoulders. Since then he has made a living by selling tanglefoot.
1893		Harper’s Mag. 87 July 307/2: When we find a Western writer describing the effects of tangle-foot whiskey, the adjective explains itself, and is justified at once.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 18 Mar. 2/6: At least once dancing ‘drum’ was found where ‘tanglefoot’ was kept on tap in a zinc bucket.
1896		Carroll Sentinel (IA) 31 Jan. 12/4: As a result of too muich indulgence in tangle foot juice [...] one of the victims was fined twenty dollars.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Jan. 28/2: [A] holiday crowd which had mixed its ‘patriotism’ with its beer […] resolved to ‘wipe out’ the peaceful German Club, which hadn’t committed any worse offence than to prefer lager to tanglehoof.
1905		(ref. 1862) Little & Maxwell A History of Lumsden’s Battery C. S. A. n.p.: Leaving Tuscaloosa, Aug. 16th, for one week they were on the road to Chattanooga and all sorts of a time was experienced. Some ‘coon juice’ ‘tangle-foot’ was occasionally in evidence and caused some exhilaration and subsequent depression and some insubordination temporary.
1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 8 Oct. 4/8: Slide some tanglefoot down this way.
1907		Sydney Morn. Herald 21 Sept. 13/7: I could if it was not for taking too much tanglewood.
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 1 Oct. 43/2: [I]n the glorious days of lambing down, when Jerry was younger and grew fat and independent, he dispensed some astonishing mixtures – known as tanglefoot, snake-juice, paralysers, double-distilled lightning, mulga rum and blue-murder rousers.
a.1918		G. Stuart Forty Years on the Frontier 265: Each dispenser of liquid refreshments had the formula for making ‘tanglefoot:’ — a quantity of boiled mountain sage, two plugs tobacco steeped in water, box cayenne pepper, one gallon water.
1925		(con. 1899) H.P. Bailey Shanghaied Out of Frisco 159: In his lap he tenderly nursed a large flagon of rye whisky — the real tangle-foot.
1931		W.N. Burns One-Way Ride 74: Here, with a dirty apron tied about his waist, Paddy the Bear held his court, sold his beer and tanglefoot.
1939		P.A. Rollins Gone Haywire 176: We heads back ter th’ saloon, [...] an’ then, goin’ inside, we bites off a couple more inches o’ th’ tanglefoot [DA].
1943		(con. 1861-5) B.I. Wiley Life of Johnny Reb 320: Now and then the parley would end with a generous snort of ‘tanglefoot’.

2. in attrib. use of sense 1.

1905

Sun. Times (Perth) 29 Oct. 1/6: One metropolitan member profited by mistaken identity [and] not a few mistook him for one of a family of tanglefoot kings.

3. (Aus.) second-rate liquor; occas. beer.

1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 84: Tangle-Foot, bad liquor, colonial beer.
1901		W.A. Sun. Times (Perth) 27 Oct. 1/1: [of champagne] When the dear girls were ‘frog-marched’ off, even the dregs and heel-taps of the tawny tanglefoot had vanished.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 3 Jan. 4/6: [He] drank his own health [...] in a flagon of foaming tanglefoot.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 4 Aug. 13/2: Beer, wine, whisky and pain-killer – I’ve tried ’em all; but the queerest tangle-foot I’ve swallowed is a concoction – branded wine – made by Austrians.
1927		Sun. Times (Perth) 28 Aug. 6/7: The tide of tanglefoot rose to his lips and began to trickle into his mouth.
1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 240/2: tanglefoot – bad liquor or beer.
2000		(con. 1855) Age (Melbourne) 25 Apr. 52/2: The Colonial ale enjoyed such derogatory nicknames as ‘sheep wash,’ ‘tangle-foot’ [...] ‘stringybark’ and ‘shypoo’.