Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) a very light-coloured black person.

1934		H. Sebastian ‘Negro Sl. in Lincoln University’ in AS IX:4 288: pinkie A very attractive light-skinned colored girl.
1938		G. Kersh Night and the City 164: I always thought she was a pinkie.
1977		D. Powis Signs of Crime 196: Pinky [...] Originally an expression for a light-coloured Negro.

(b) (orig. US black) a white person.

[1919		A. Baer Two and Three 21 Feb. [synd. col.] Chirps that he [...] weighs only 275 pounds in his pinkies].
1967		Observer 10 Sept. 17/2: The racial discrimination that black school-leavers find when they look for jobs is not a surprise: it is a confirmation. By the time they leave school, whites have become ‘pinky’, ‘the grey man’ or [...] ‘Mr. Charlie’.
1972		K. Johnson ‘Vocab. of Race’ in Kochman Rappin’ and Stylin’ Out 145: Pinkie. Refers to the skin color of white women.
1977		D. Powis Signs of Crime 196: Pinky [...] Negro racist expression for a white person, not used in white company.

(a) cheap red wine; thus pinky-shop, a store specializing in such wine; pinkyite, a drinker of such wine.

1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 31 Jan. 4/5: Adelaide temperance reformers are said to be much exercised at the growing popularity of a local wine known as ‘Pinky.’ This particular brand of grape-juice seems to owe most of its vogue to the fact that it is cheap and fillng at the price, and that a few glasses of it are warranted to make the imbiber as ‘shic’ as a violinist .
1905		Advertiser (Aus.) 10 Aug. 3/7: Every Dick, Tom, or Harry who can stagger into their own camp [...] with a bottle of pinkie, i.e. cheap colonial wine.
1912		Sun. Times (Perth) 21 Apr. 8/7: I got even with Mr Nark [...] and soused him in pinky.
1915		Sport (Adelaide) 8 Jan. 5/3: Fishy George [...] goes to the pinky shop to sip Red Ned.
1919		Sun. Times (Perth) 15 June 13/1: A vendetta against ‘pinkie’ shops — otherwise second-rate wine shops.
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 10 Dec. 22/3: The Kiwai, unable to get alcohol, has taken to gamada with great vigor, and a debauch on it will breed more snakes than a night or two of ‘pinky.’ Too much gamada gives a very bad ‘morning after’ feeling.
1922		Sun. Times (Perth) 12 Mar. 4/6: It is well known that cheap wines colloquially called ‘pinkie’ are vended.
1931		Barrier Miner (Broken Hill, NSW) 10 Feb. 1/3: The defendant had been drinking [...] cheap wine, alias ‘pinky’.
1936		A. Russell Gone Nomad 55: Beer, whisky, ‘pinky’.
1949		Sydney Morn. Herald 28 July 4/7: Steps will be taken to prevent the sale of ‘plonk’ and ‘pinkie’.
1954		Mirror (Perth) 8 May 1/2: They purchase inferior wine — the real pinky type.
1958		Maclean’s (Toronto) 27 Sept. 63/3: Pinkie [in St. John’s, Newfoundland] is a cheap wine highly regarded by waterfront connoisseurs, a chaser for screech [OED].
1970		N. Beagley Up and Down Under 80: Port was called ‘Pinkie,’ and those who preferred port were Pinkie drinkers, and if one’s name was Joe, he would be referred to as ‘Pinkie Joe’.
1980		(ref. to 1920s–30s) Hepworth & Hindle Boozing out in Melbourne Pubs 15: Affectionate nicknames for the stuff itself were: scarlet runner, [...] pinky, plonk and plink.

(b) methylated spirits mixed with cheap red wine or Condy’s crystals.

1911		Advertiser (Adelaide) 10 May 12/2: ‘Pinkie’ must go [...] ‘Pinkie’ and methylated spirits are the worst intoxicants in use in this city.
1924		Sun. Times (Perth) 26 Apr. 13/6: I have always been in extra opposition to ‘pinkie’ — that is, bad wine drowned in spirits.
1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. 54: Pink-eye, [...] an addict of the noxious drink called ‘pinky’, the constituents of which are either red wine and methylated spirits or methylated spirits and Condy’s crystals.
1959		D. Hewett Bobbin Up (1961) 93: He’d drink anything they reckoned, plonk, pinkie, straight metho.

(a) (US black) a pink automobile, esp. a Cadillac.

1999

‘Master Pimp’ Pimp’s Rap 83: I jumped in the pinkie and jetted toards the Player’s Lounge.

(b) (UK black) a £50 note.

2006		Dev on 1Xtra 29 Apr. [BBC radio] I ain’t concerned with the money, though it [i.e. a wallet] did have a good pinkie in there.
2008		A. Wheatle Dirty South 52: Four pinkies was four fifty pound notes and Noel loved the look of them.