Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. upper-class.

1885

Bulletin (Sydney) 3 Jan. 22/4: Inside the [corset] is another small receptacle for tram-tickets, and we can faintly imagine the joy of a crowded tram when a top-shelf society lady unpeels to get at the little punctured piece of pasteboard.

2. (also top-rung) excellent, first-class, the best public service; as adv., top quality.

1905		E.W. Hornung A Thief in the Night (1992) 278: ‘Nice house?’ said Raffles [...] ‘Top shelf,’ said I. ‘You know the houses in Palace Gardens, don’t you?’.
1964		J. Berryman 77 Dream Songs 66: How feel a fellow then when he arrive / in fame but lost? but affable, top-shelf.
1975		Bulletin (Sydney) 26 Apr. 45: Anyway, we fell on a jewellers in the main drag. Top shelf stuff in the window. About a score of Omega blocks and only one goose in the store.
1989		J. Hibberd Memoirs of an Old Bastard 70: She was a top woman, and drank top shelf! I coughed up for a case of 1978 Grange.
1996		(con. 1946) G. Pelecanos Big Blowdown (1999) 56: That Dinah Shore is top shelf.
1999		Guardian Guide 25 Sept.–1 Oct. 9: Think you can beat that with your high-falutin’ top-shelf fodder?
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.
2018		(con. 1963) L. Berney November Road 39: Top-shelf merchandise.

3. orig. of books, latterly magazines, pornographic [euph.; the positioning of such material in a library or newsagent’s].

1898		Manchester Times 4 Nov. n.p.: It is said that in his [i.e. the Rev. James Wilmot’s] library there were a good many specimens of that type of work which is described as ‘top shelf books’ – that is to say, works of a former age in which the higher morality of a latter age finds very much to take exception to.
1900		Daily Chronicle Sept. n.p.: Of what is generally known as ‘top-shelf’ literature he had a unique collection.

4. (US und.) highly demanding.

2012

L. Berney Whiplash River [ebook] ‘Fertility tourism, you had to understand, was a top-shelf racket. You couldn’t cut corners. You had to pamper the gals. They’d expect the very best’.