Lost Word Of The Week (88)

On August 1, 2023 UK duty on still wine with a strength of over 11% ABV went up by 20% from 11.5% to 14.5% plus VAT, the biggest tax hike since 1975. Chancellors see taxing alcohol as fair game but one who bucked the trend was William Gladstone. In 1861 to foster the entente cordiale, he slashed the duty on French wine from twelve shillings to two shillings per dozen bottles. His action led to the country being flooded with French wine of dubious quality.

Although his name is best known in association with a bag, Gladstone was also slang for cheap French wine, appearing in John Hotten’s Slang Dictionary of 1864. In Walter Besant’s and James Rice’s The Golden Butterfly, published in 1876, we find “Claret certainly good too, none of your Gladstone tap” while Birrell in 1885 reports “to make him unbosom himself over a bottle of Gladstone claret”.

The days of Gladstone’s largesse are a distant memory.