Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) a mix of spruce (‘Prussian’) beer, rum and sugar.

c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Swizzle. Drink. Liquor. In the Northern Colonies of America Spruce beer, Plum & Sugar was so called.
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn) n.p.: SWIZZLE. [...] In North America, a mixture of spruce beer, rum, and sugar, was so called.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1788].
1833		M. Scott Tom Cringle’s Log (1862) 37: The rum was produced forthwith [...] I lighted a pipe and filled a glass of swizzle.
1850		J. Hannay Singleton Fontenoy II 5: ‘It serves me right for deserting rum, my proper tipple. Boy, the amber fluid!’ Here Mr. Snigg mixed himself some swizzle and consoled himself.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

2. any form of intoxicating liquor.

1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn) n.p.: swizzle Drink, or any brisk or windy liquor. […].
1795		Freemasons’ Mag. (London) 1 Aug. 119: The landlord [...] was not one of your common dry brained swizzle venders [sic]; no, sir; he had read several characters carefully in the book of nature.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1813		P. Hawker Diary (1893) I 22 Feb. 68: The boys [...] finished the evening with some prime grub, swizzle, and singing.
1830		Bell’s Life in London 21 Feb. 3/2: Rince your mug; / With right good swizzle from this fancy jug.
1843		G.W. Le Fevre Life Travelling Physician III 86: We pledged each another in a glass of swizzle, the most salubrious beverage in hot weather .
1843		R.S. Surtees Handley Cross (1854) 12: One Roger Swizzle, a roystering, red-faced, round-about apothecary.
1853		Delhi Sketch Bk 1 Sept. 50/2: Commissariat rum was the swizzle, / They gave us for wetting our whistle.
1855		(con. 1845) Fights for the Championship 195: The call for swizzle [was] so continuous that many of the best filled cellars were exhausted.
1863		T. Taylor Ticket-Of-Leave Man Act I: Ah, tidy swizzle.
1873		C. Rampini Letters from Jamaica 48: If you get any good old swizzle / I will pitch in to de grog.
1884		Manchester Eve. News 26 Dec. 4/2: Brandy swizzle. Gin Swizzle.
1904		Belfast News-Letter 15 June 6: Beer would provide an immense variety of names [...] from ‘stingo’ and ‘swipes’ to ‘swizzle’.
1933		(con. 1904) F. Riesenberg Log of the Sea 265: We [...] were met by our host and his lady, native serving men, bearing wide trays, offered high beakers of swizzle.

3. the act of drinking.

1895

South Wales Echo 1 Aug. 2/6: He must have penned the chapter after [...] a walk into Monmouth and a Sunday ‘swizzle’.

4. in a public house, tap-droppings.

1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 83: Swizzle, bad beer, etc.
1900		Eve. Teleg. (Dundee) 1 Sept. 3/6: The language of the London East-end pub [...] ‘Swizzle’ and ‘Swipes’ — the droppings of the tap.