cane beer n chiefly GA, Gulf States Also called ram beer n, soo cat n Cf beer n, buck n4, cane skimmings n pl
A fermented beverage made from the skimmings of boiling sugarcane juice.
1871 GA Weekly Telegraph & GA Jrl. (Macon) 12 Dec [6]/3 swGA, “Cane” beer makes drunk come—being so sharp—down about Thomasville. 1875 Daily Ledger–Std. (New Albany IN) 6 Nov 1/4 cnIN, The little boy told his mother that his father gave him some cane beer on the morning the child was sick. 1887 Cultivator & Country Gentleman 52.4/2 TX, Cane beer is another luxury which we revel in during the grinding season. This is simply partly-boiled cane juice, which is skimmed from the boiling kettles, put into a barrel and fermented. In a week’s time it makes a fine, wholesome and palatable beverage. 1918 Herring Sat. Night Sketches 38 csGA, In a few days when the “skimmings” ferment—there is cane beer, delicious with its sweet-sour taste, and still later “buck” from the same stuff, now at a stage when only the initiated can appreciate it, ready for the hard drinker or the wildcat still. 1943 Hattiesburg Amer. (MS) 1 Dec 4/3, The skimmings are thrown in a nearby barrel and whole grain corn is added. “Just you let that mixture set a few days,” Granpappy chuckled. . . “That mixture” is known as cane beer. 1955 AmSp 30.158 AL, Other names [for sugarcane beer] . . are: . . cane beer. 1966–68 DARE (Qu. DD28b, . . Fermented drinks . . made at home) Infs AL39, GA5, LA6, Cane beer. 1986 Pederson LAGS Concordance (Home-brewed beer or whiskey) 1 inf, swGA, Cane beer = cane skimmings; 1 inf, csAL, Cane beer—made of fermented syrup, at syrup mill; 1 inf, csMS, Cane beer—made from skimmings; 1 inf, ceLA, Cane beer—made from juice of sugarcane.