char v
A Form.
Past pple, ppl adj: usu charred, also charded. Cf chartered adj, -ed suff 1
1807 in 2000 Bradley–Woodward 4 Zinas 14 NH, I had . . one yellow and tan petticoat and a white one made out of an old charded toe blanket all full of holes. 1930 Streator Daily Times–Press (IL) 19 Aug 9/6, [Advt:] For Sale. . . 25 charded barrels. 1940 Washington Missourian (MO) 26 Dec 5/1, [Advt:] Fine Whiskies . . American or Windsor. Aged in finest charded oak barrel. 1956 Llano News (TX) 26 Jan 6/5, If the broiler pan is burned and charded making it hard to wash, the food has been cooked too fast. 1966 Shreveport Times (LA) 5 Nov sec A 4/3, Fire Chief Gene Davis said the attic and three rooms of the seven-room frame house was gutted including a bedroom in which the woman [sic] charded body was found. 1972 News (Frederick MD) 9 June sec B 12/5, Caught in a crack of one pot sherd was a charded sunflower seed.
B Senses.
1 To treat (raw whiskey) with charred wood, usu by aging it in a charred barrel; hence vbl n charring, ppl adj charred; comb charring keg a charred barrel used for this purpose. Cf charter v, chartered adj 2
1932 S. Star (Newton AL) 21 Dec 1/6, Charring of whisky helps its taste, the agents said, but Alabama moonshiners seldom use the charring keg on what might be basically better liquor than the charred product of other states. . . “At least,” said another defender, “there is no deception in Alabama corn. The moonshiners will admit their stuff is colored instead of charred if you pin them down.” 1947 Country Gentleman Aug 58 TN, Mr. Southwick . . came out smelling like a dipperful of Uncle Akely’s charred whisky. 1959 Federal Suppl. 172.820 TN, Soon after arriving in the kitchen Mrs. Bush took from the cabinet two half-gallon jars, one containing about a quart of white whiskey and the other about a quart of aged or charred whiskey. 1966 Kingsport Times (TN) 9 Nov sec C 1/3, Since pure moonshine is colorless, the retailer approximates the color of legal liquor in a number of ways. “Charred,” “charted,” or “chartered” whisky is made by two methods. The easiest is by pouring it through a container of hickory charcoal briquets. . . In the second method, the inside of a wooden barrel is burned and the excess charcoal is dumped out, leaving a charred coating inside the barrel. 1975 KY Folkl. Rec. 21.40 eKY, Raisins, tobacco, and buckeyes were placed in the moonshine to give the whiskey the coloring. This process was used instead of charring the whiskey. A “real” drinker could tell the difference between charred whiskey and the artificially flavored. Brown or granulated sugar was placed in a teaspoon and then burned on top of the stove. The sugar content was then poured into two-gallon jars. This was to make whiskey seem as if it had been charred.
2 To color (raw whiskey) with burnt sugar, to imitate the effects of aging.
1988 Austin Amer.–Statesman (TX) 21 July sec A 17/4 wTN, He’d been back in the kitchen charring whiskey, that being the quickest way of ‘aging’ moonshine likker. All you needed to do was burn some sugar on the stove lid until it turned reddish brown in color. Mix that in with white lightning and your whiskey looked as pretty as if it’d been residing in an oak barrel for four years.