Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a devotee of champagne, thus attrib.

1867		H.J. Whymark & Alfred Lee [song title] Champagne Charlie is My Name.
1868		Sportsman 5 Mar. 2/1: Notes on News [...] ‘Champagne Charley’ gents, graduating, over ‘fizz’ paid for out of their masters’ tills.
1871		Ovens & Murray Advertiser (Beechworth, Vic.) 4 Nov. 6/4: He has been with Madame Cliquot, too, this veritable Champagne Charlie.
1889–90		Barrère & Leland Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant I 235/2: Champagne Charley, [...] any dissipated man or noted drinker of ‘fizz’.

2. a debauchee, a dissipated man.

1868		Sportsman 3 June 2/1: Notes on News [...] A dishonest Haymarket ‘Champagne Charley,’ who robs the till pay for the jewellery of a prostitute.
1886		Era (London) 11 Dec. 10/4: [He] made the Major too much a ‘Champagne Charlie’ of the music halls, witha strain of the swell mobsman thrown in.
1889–90		see sense 1.
1939		Lorenz Hart ‘Give It Back to the Indians’ 🎵 Broadway’s turning into Coney! / Champagne Charlie’s drinking gin.
1989		in G. Tremlett Little Legs 54: You [...] find out who are the Champagne Charlies.

a cut-down top hat with a curly brim.

1867		Manchester Courier 4 Nov. 3/4: [The witness] was as certain of Martin as of Nugent. martin had what was called a ‘Champagne Charlie’ hat on.
1868		Ashton Wkly Reporter 25 Apr. 2/3: The man who shot had a ‘Champagne Charlie’ hat on [...] a kind of chimney pot felt hat with broad brims.
1870		London & Provincial Entr’acte 15 Oct. 3/1: Around him sit six sealskin vests, / Six champagne charlie hats.

money.

1959

I. & P. Opie Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 175: Money, for instance is variously referred to as: brass, [...] bees and honey, and champagne coupons.

(UK society) sloping shoulders.

1874		Sunderland Dly Echo 6 Jan. 4/2: He described Roger as having champagne shoulders [...] the defendant stood up for the jury to see the sloping shoulders.
1885		H.E. Stannard Ghost of an Old Love 207: A little, empty-headed noodle, with champagne-shoulders and knock-knees! I can’t bear the little wretch, with his horrid, mouthing, cockney drawl .
1909		Manchester Courier 27 Aug. 12/4: Champagne bottle shoulders, narrow hips, bow legs, and heaps other abnormalities.
1916		Perthshire Advertiser 21 June 4/6: He recommended Volunteer training for ‘bicycle backs, champagne shoulders and feeble legs’.
1936		S. Desmond London Pride 98: He wished them all a pleasant if inaudible ‘good night’ and rolled out with his champagne shoulders, his grey eyes set in his head and his generally ‘hard-pumped’ look.
1996		T. Gray Peculiar Man 87: [George Moore] had champagne shoulders, and a somewhat thick, ungainly figure.

one who preaches socialism but espouses a capitalist lifestyle.

1981		C. Hope Separate Development 167: You’re a pate de foie Marxist who has ratted on his brothers.
1987		N.Y. Times 5 July II. 28/6: His politics, too, are resolutely leftist; he describes himself as a ‘champagne socialist’ (the British equivalent of a limousine liberal) [OED].
1991		N.Y. Mag. 25 Mar. 39: [pic. caption] The ‘champagne Socialist’ [i.e. Robert Maxwell] with his Labourite London TABLOID.
1996		K. Lette Mad Cows 123: Sushi Socialists who dwelt in the stellar realms of London’s Celebritocracy.
1999		Guardian Saturday Rev. 12 June 11: Our best-known champagne socialist writer.
2002		Guardian 10 Mar. 🌐 Is Ken Follett a champagne socialist? As a long-term Bolly drinker, he says he quite likes the term Bollinger Bolshevik, coined by fellow writer John Mortimer, but would prefer to invent something of his own.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 44: chardonnay socialist A tepid socialist; used by Mike Moore 26 November 1993 of those Labour politicians planning his demise as leader of the party.
2014		I. Ellis You Lose Some, You Win One 69: At least he was ‘proper Labour’, not a privately educated, Champagne Socialist like Tony Fucking Blair.

see under trick n.¹

(UK society) clear, bright weather [Ware (1909) defines term as ‘bad weather’ but seems to be a mis-interpretation].

1898		Western Morn. News 25 Aug. 7/6: The entertainment wound up with some ‘dry’ speeches, in keeping with the dry champagne weather which prevailed.
1909		Homeward Mail from India etc 30 Oct. 1378/2: The usual glorious weather has set in [...] the so-called ‘champagne weather’ for which the Himalayas are rightly renowned in the autumn.